SCYTHE — Decay (review)

Album · 2006 · Death Metal

4/5 · 2017-11-20
Sea Whisperer

This band from Buchholz, Germany, is pretty obscure, despite having five full-length albums in their discography. Their fourth album “Decay”, released in 2006, continues in the direction of “Poetry of Illusions”, which had been issued three years earlier, offering quite interesting Death-Doom metal, where heaviness of the former genre perfectly balances and complements sorrowful atmosphere of the latter.

It’s hard for me to name some famous band as an influence to this. It’s obviously rooted in Old School death metal, but their approach to songwriting doesn’t remind about any particular band. As for similar bands, another not so well-known German collective, Valborg, comes to mind.

First half of the album consists of heavier and more complex songs with mid-tempo riffs, pretty straightforward drums and captivating atmosphere of depression, grief and anger. It is notable, that SCYTHE creates multi-layered soundscapes, easily conjuring images of autumn, without keyboards – some well-placed clean guitar parts and leadfills work wonders on this record. It feels like music sounds in vast open, breathing space. Just listen to opening of “Pretending not to see”, with clean arpeggios evoking a feel of falling raindrops, backed up by crushing riffs and steady drums. Another important part of SCYTHE music is vocal performance of Sven Hosan. He does a terrific job, providing both furious growl (sounding similar to Mikael Akerfeldt from Opeth) and clean parts. He is also responsible for guitars and bass on this album, delivering lots of catchy riffs and mournful solos. As for the structure of these songs, all of them consist of several distinct parts, containing some memorable elements, which helps to rivet listener’s attention from start to finish. A good example of this approach to songwriting is the longest track on the album, 13-min long epic “A Glimpse of the Eastern Sunrise”, with orientally-flavored opening and calm, slumber-like fragment in the middle and false ending. At the same time, different parts flow seamlessly one into another, creating a feel of continuous narrative. Frequent using of recurring themes helps reaching completeness and wholeness of the songs.

Second half of “Decay” opens with “Das Leben, das ich selbst gewählt” (lyrics by German writer Hermann Hesse), fast and furious, the only song on the album with elements of Black metal in it. “Cogwheel” is the least heavy track, with prevailing bass and interesting echoing guitar sound. “While everyone sleeps” is one of the most depressing song I’ve ever heard, with hauntingly beautiful intro which suddenly gives way to powerful riffs and harsh vocals, expressing, aside from sadness and anger, resignation. Album concludes with a ballad-like track “October”, which perfectly conveys all spectrum of emotions associated with autumn. Omnipresent clean guitars, Sven’s thoughtful vocals, devoid of its rage (“I want to lose my wrath”), long crying solo in the end (reminding of some songs by SATURNUS), makes it a great way to end this journey. Summary: highly underrated album from highly underrated band. A great soundtrack for long autumnal evenings.