Sweet Cerebral Destruction

Azylya are a band that I found way back in May but never really listened to properly. Having finally done so, I wish that I had got round to them sooner. Sweet Cerebral Destruction is a very promising debut full-length, and for any fans of gothic metal it's well worth giving a spin. All things being well this band can go very far, and I'd keep an eye out for a follow-up album.

As with a large portion of gothic bands, the vocals are split in a typical style of harsh male vocals and clean female ones. The growls aren't the best and sound an awful lot like the horrendous pig squeals that I detest so much, and unfortunately they do detract from the overall sound. Fortunately the guy's counterpart Jamie-Lee Smit has a beautiful floating voice that manages to salvage something from the vocal work. It's a shame that the vocals are split evenly actually, as I'd like to hear a lot more of Jamie-Lee as she appears to be quite a talented singer, with a decent range to accompany her lovely tone.

The guitars are reasonably heavy for a gothic band, which I find to be a good thing. They mostly play basic riffing patterns in the background, occasionally swapped for a bit of chugging. Besides that they do have a couple of sections where things get more technical and they get to show what they can actually do, but while they do so reasonably well I don't think it particularly adds anything that was previously missing from the band. The main lead for the music comes from the keyboard, which is utilised both as an obvious leading factor and as more subtle background noise. Whatever it does though it is done very well and adds that atmosphere to the band that would otherwise be missing.

The bass is as non-existent as you might expect it to be, while the opposite can be said of the drumming. It's very audible and while it isn't played badly by any means it is certainly too far forward in the mix. It makes the rest of the band sound quite distant, and as a result it is another negative factor even though technically the drumming is very sound. The drummer is forced to deal with some very intricate changes of pace but he does so with ease, and had it not been that his stuff outweighed the rest of the band then I'm sure he would be a valuable asset to Azylya.

For this band there is still a way to go before they truly reach their potential, but they have got the ability to do so. I think that some of the errors that mean Sweet Cerebral Destruction isn't quite as good as it could have been are down to inexperience more than anything else, and I'm sure that they'll grow to become even better than they are here.