The Hyle – EP (2016) / 87%

Corn doom

Denmark's The Hyle released a pretty good demo 2 years ago and now they're back with a brand new extended play composed of 2 extended tracks for a bit less than 20 minutes of doom metal. It certainly feels longer since I've been pressing the repeat button all day…

Playing a style of traditional doom betting highly on atmospheric moments and downtuned heaviness, the band is right at the border of doom/stoner without entering it. They do dig Electric Wizard a lot and their riffs are pretty distorted but they're way deeper and entrancing than your usual stoner band, they even include some psychedelic moments. It's slow, repetive (but not overly so) and full of subtle textures. Like near the end on the first track, there's those little touches during the calm break before the heavy end.

It's crushing but totally laid back and features a pretty original take on doom reminding me of the Canadian duo Zaum (they're freaking awesome) as they're also including some middle-eastern influences (mostly apparent on track 2 “Samaa”). The use of the sitar midway through the song made this song truly special. The electric guitars are superb and the production is top notch, the leads at the end of the same track are well done, there's many guitar tracks at once and it creates a rich sound environment. The vocals while rare are quite good, not buried under the whole thing at all, they're clean and quite soothing, really.

The two tunes are taking their time to develop, The Hyle doesn't mind two minutes introductions and I don't either when the riffs are that good. These guys are ready to unleash something more substantial, they have found their sound and it's pretty freaking legit. It's loud but classy and smart doom and I'm convinced.

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