Kyr'am Beskar

I didn’t know there was Star Wars themed death metal out there, although I suppose I’m the last person who would look for it, since I don’t actually know if I’ve even seen all of the original films. (Like, I’ve definitely seen bits of them, but never deliberately sat down to watch one.) Regardless, you wouldn’t know that Kyr’am Beskar had a particular theme to it if you listened to the 4 songs on this EP, unless you count the samples that I guess come from the movies. ‘Cauterized Saber Wound Massacre’ starts off with one such long clip, which, given the themes, suits death metal just fine anyway in its relation to the fringes of sanity and memory of slaughter.

Musically, the trio of Ecryptus (sadly, drummer Dann Solo has passed away since the recording was made) put a lot of local US death metal influences together to make a smacking heavy pile of riffs that occasionally reminds me of Immolation on the heavy end and The Black Dahlia Murder at a few more accessible moments. Those lighter moments remain brutally focused however, grinding down with percussion and meaty string tones during slower parts, then fast-forwarding into blasting sections that are ruthless in their construction. As a 19 minute release, Kyr’am Beskar (oh, it’s Mandalorian for “death metal”, by the way) can enjoy a bit of leeway in terms of going off the chain at length, which ‘Digested Over a Thousand Years’ takes most advantage of, building up a massive head of steam as momentum gathers and the down-pressing heaviness pins me to my seat. Very deep vocals dominate where verses appear, while a few furious solos add a splash of colour, most noticeably on ‘Compulsion to Disintegrate’, where they briefly bring melody into the picture.

I might have thought that Ecryptus would sound more fun given their preoccupation with Star Wars, which admittedly seems to be a feature of their live shows where they dress in full costume, but here you really need to like death metal to get any enjoyment from the experience. I can cope with an EP’s worth of the style just fine, yet I’m not thinking of playing Kyr’am Beskar too often despite its general decent impression. Perhaps this would be really fun to play during crazy lightsabre battles.