Hyperborea - "Umbra" (Art Gates Records, 2019)

Band: Hyperborea
Title: Umbra
Genre: Death Metal
Time: 42.39 min
Release date: 15th November 2019
Vote: 79/100













Do you believe that the band I am going to review today is the first one that, on these pages, comes from Bulgaria? Oh yeeeah, after 10 years of existence of this 'zine, Hyperborea is the first Bulgarian band to be features here! I've to say I started to know very well the Bulgarian metal scene because they kick a lot of fukken asses! Plus, we're talking about a band of pure veterans, if you think that they are out there since 1997, even though their "Umbra", released after the beauty of 12 years from the previous one, is the third album of their career. Well, I hope that they'll receive a better consideration with "Umbra", also because they are now into the roster of a very good Spanish label like Art Gates Records that, indeed, released it in the final days of 2019.

"Umbra" is a 9-track album that offers a really interesting sound played with a creative approach. In a specific way, after an intro called "Jung's Forewarning" full of acoustic guitars, spoken samples and a truly desolating atmosphere, "Umbra" shows a death metal able to be very violent but also versatile at the same time. In fact, Hyperborea takes inspirations from various sides of the death metal genre, so they range, also in the same song, to the melodic death metal to the technical death metal and to the brutal death metal, mixing even the malignity of the old-school death metal with more modernist solutions. But Hyperborea goes even beyond since you can hear a bit of thrash metal and a lot of black metal influences throughout the album. All this is presented not only through a clean and powerful production but also through some unpredictable schemes and somehow strange solutions even in tracks more focused on an old-school approach.

To make you understand better what Hyperborea are, I can mention the three favorite tracks of mine, and each of them is a good example describing the different skills possessed by the band. So, the first one is surely "From Within" that, released also as a promotional video (you can watch it above), is a song combining the purest aggression with very technical solutions, dissonances, and some melodies, and there is even an unexpected and really imaginative melodic guitar solo. Instead, the second song is called "Supremacists", that is more based on old-school death metal tunes but with some particular groovy drums while the lyrics, as suggested by the same title, are against the current phenomenon of the fuckin' supremacists spreading useless hate especially all over Europe. And the third track is surely "Unwelcome", that starts melodic and in mid-tempo and ends with a memorable climax through an unchained and intense black/thrash metal part with a sort of special guitar solo in the middle while lyrically this song is about the global warming and its terrible consequences.

Curiously, the last two songs of the album, both without guitar solo, are so complex that Hyperborea enter completely the technical death metal territories with them. So, "Wrong Planet Syndrome" is a lot influenced by black metal and has many instrumental parts. Instead, the closing song "Atavistic Fear" lasts even 7 minutes and an half in which there are slow passagges more than the usual, some clean guitar sequences, a sick atmosphere and an obsessive end. But the problem about both these tracks is that they are so complex but also labyrinthine to be not exactly impactful, also since some instrumental parts could be filled, for example, with guitar solos. At this point, I mostly prefer songs like "From Within", where the technical death metal elements are perfectly combined with a lot of violence even thanks to some thrash metal influences.

Said that, we are in presence of a very intriguing band showing with its third album a versatile but violent death metal that, in a certain sense, reminds me of another band belonging to the roster of Art Gates Rec, Rebel Souls. In addition, Hyperborea offers intelligent lyrics that alternates psychological themes with socio-political issues also related with the environmentalism, a theme very important nowadays. Shame for the two last songs of the album, that don't convinces me so much but, fortunately, Hyperborea were able to create great numbers such as "From Within", "Supremacists" and "Unwelcome", so I recommend without any doubts this "Umbra", the third album of a band that, put by me into the new episode of "Come on, burn my ears!", is always ready to play everywhere. In fact, do you believe that they have a so respectable live curriculum full of supporting gigs to bands of the calibre of Obituary, Arch Enemy, Vader, Asphyx and many others?

Tracklist:

1 - Jung's Forewarning
2 - Home of My Misery
3 - From Within
4 - Silent Stream
5 - Supremacists
6 - Two Extremities
7 - Unwelcome
8 - Wrong Planet Syndrome
9 - Atavistic Fear

Line-up:

Dancho Ivanov - vocals
Yordan Kanchev - guitars
Andrey Andronov - guitars
Vladimir Ivanov - bass
Antonis Trochopoulos - drums

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/HYPERBOREA/220291968354
Art Gates Records: http://artgatesrecords.com/home/