Seraphical Euphony

Formed in late 2007, the Swedish melodic black/death metal outfit utilizing Hyperion have always been quite adept at featuring their old-school black and metal influences carried through their ancestral country-mates that cultivated their sound in the early 90s. With the group rounded out to a sextet with the addition of third guitarist Joel Hagroth, this sophomore album was originally released February 6, 2016 on Black Lion Records.

Once the album gets going, it’s really easy to see where the band has taken its influences from as there’s a rather obvious attack surging throughout here. This one goes for a pronounced and distinctive element of striking tremolo-pitched riffing and deep, swirling chugging, giving this the atmospheric and blistering take founded in the early days of the genre where the sparkling melodic leads over the thumping patterns created a heavy and yet still highly melodic attack. Given that majority of the album utilizes these efforts to oftentimes epic stature here, it’s all nicely balanced out by the fine addition of more relaxed, charging mid-tempo paces which go for a streamlined, swirling tremolo attack and sterling keyboard work which carries this one along into the melodic realm rather than the faster, more frantic efforts which is quite appealing. This dueling approach gives it a fine mixture of both charging, fiery intensity as well as breath-taking melodic interjections featured alongside each other, and the end result is inherently dynamic and well-crafted material. This does result in several tracks where it really feels it’s length and the epic quality does run against it, though since it’s a rare occurrence this isn’t all too detrimental and doesn’t really hold this one back all that much.

Without a whole lot of really big, detrimental issues to be found here, the fact that this one comes out of the gate with such a strong, impressive attack makes this a worthwhile act to follow in the future and is heartily recommended for all fans of the old-school melodic black/death sound or melodic black metal in general.

There’s so much to enjoy within the black metal sub-genre and one aspect that has sort of been missing is a really badass melodic black metal act. Filling that dark, empty void could be Sweden’s Hyperion with their debut album Seraphical Euphony.

Raw and Cascadian black metal (from where I sit) are what’s “in” right now in black metal. I have no complaints about it either, but it has become harder to really separate newer bands with similar sounds. Enter Hyperion who have basically nailed a classic sound with the melodic black metal I -and others- have come to love from Dissection and Emperor, two titans of black metal.

With neither of those groups around any longer, Hyperion could corner the market where a Dimmu Borgir is far too symphonic, commercial and polished for many.

After a good classical intro, no time is wasted letting loose on “Novo Ordo Seclorum” and you can feel that you’re in for a heavy dose of ripping melodic black metal a couple minutes in with a dash of death metal thrown in for good measure. I don’t want to spend too much time doing a back and forth comparison of Hyperion to Dissection, but the title track could have been on either of Dissection’s classic albums Storm of the Light’s Bane or The Somberlain. I hear those albums in “Seraphical Euphony.”

The sound is very textured with six different guys making up the whole of the music. The riffs are furious and benefits from having four guitarists. Anders Peterson’s drumming across eight tracks of beautiful black metal is relentless and really drives it forward. He even did the symphony piece on the intro track … and the album’s keyboards, that’s one busy guy. Then there is vocalist Harry Lauraéus who has the rapid fire, black metal raspy vocals and screams down. He is more than sufficient for this style of black metal.

Don't sleep on this amazing album.

Favorite track: "Primal Cosmic Ascendancy"

(Originally written for Kvlt of Brewtality www.kvltofbrewtality.wordpress.com)