Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 08/11/2014
Label: Self Release/Serpent Eve Records
'Soulchambers' CD/Cassette/DD track listing:
1). Descend (01:17)
2). Spine of Snakes (06:08)
3). Ordeal Vision (13:06)
4). Sever the Stars (10:23)
5). Weeping Orbits (04:31)
6). The Undying (16:14)
The Band:
Georgi Yoshovski | drums
Asen Santev | guitars
Yavor Dimov | bass/vocals
Asen Santev | guitars
Yavor Dimov | bass/vocals
Review:
In order to really enjoy Trysth’s album ‘Soulchambers’, you have to have some faith. As with any good music in the doom metal genre, there are some boring moments on the album if they’re taken out of context. When listened to as a cohesive bit of art, though, ‘Soulchambers’ is like a journey, always one step ahead of the listener, toying with them.
The first seven minutes of the album, a one minute instrumental intro followed by the six minute ‘Spine of Snakes’ (also instrumental), are a masterpiece themselves as far as tension building goes. The distortion doesn’t even drop until two minutes into the song, leaving the album with a three minute intro of just abstract noises and trippy guitar coupled with an almost tribal drumbeat. Once the nice, heavy first riff of ‘Spine of Snakes’ comes in, you can feel it even more, and you’re waiting for it to go all the way – ready for someone to start screaming at you, ready for some shredding fuzzed out, wah-heavy solo, ready for a chorus, a verse, anything, but Trysth isn’t going to give it to you that easy. The steady increase in tempo subsides eventually coupled with a slow outro solo to usher in ‘Ordeal Vision’, which is where the album really kicks it into overdrive.
This thirteen minute epic initially picks up where ‘Spine of Snakes’ left off, keeping up with the slow intense riffing that you can feel all the way in your gut, even if the volume isn’t turned up all the way (but if that’s how you’re listening to the album, fuck off). Once Yavor Dimov’s vocals come in, you realize why this first verse deserved what was essentially nine minutes of intro by this point. As soon as he opens his mouth, you feel like he’s ready to rip your heart out and eat it – he can belt out an evil throaty growl that doesn’t sound cheesy, doesn’t sound forced, just sounds like the perfect embodiment of anger and suffering.
By this point alone, Trysth had me won over, I liked the album… then they started their crazy chanting in the middle of the song, feeling like it could worm its way into your brain and really fuck things up. Now I definitely liked this album. I could be mistaken, but it sounds like he’s using the Tuvan throat singing method at this point (look that up, its nuts). So many stoner/doom bands these days use chanting in their music, and I feel like it can really be a cop out at times. Here, though, it just feels so natural. Dimov’s screaming is so intense that you’ll feel like you need to just sit back and listen to some weird fucking Tuvan throat singing chanting in between verses before you come back for more.
By the time I had listened through all of ‘Ordeal Vision’, I was almost worried that they had peaked. The first 20 minutes was so goddamn intense and, excuse the cliché, it was like a roller coaster of emotions, going between blistering, evil, heavily soul crushing riffs and screaming to their deep soulful clean bits, that I didn’t know where the rest of the album could go from there. ‘Sever the Stars’, though, the 10 minute fourth track of the album, is the most important song on the album. At first, it tricks you into thinking its just filler to come after ‘Ordeal Vision’. It starts out with so much reverb you feel like you’re in the bottom of mile-deep cave, and it drones on for four repetitive minutes. Trysth seems to know how the listener is going to feel by this point – impressed with the start of the album, but probably a little bit bored with the four minute intro to ‘Sever the Stars’. It brings you intro a trance, and you let your down your guard, so that when they unleash the ridiculously heavy, damningly powerful riffs during the remainder of this song, you’re totally knocked off your feet. They really know how to bring the hammer down here. And when the hammer comes down in this song, it comes down fucking HARD. Like knock the wind out of your chest, hard.
I said earlier that this album was like a journey. ‘Sever the Stars’ is the destination. The first 20 minutes of the album got you so pumped up for the badassery unleashed on this song, and the 20 minutes after it serve as an outro for this song, the nice short interlude ‘Weeping Orbits’ followed by ‘The Undying’ slowly bringing you back to reality, while still being a great song on it’s own. If someone were to tell me this whole album is based off of one awesome song, and yet the whole album is still one cohesive bit of interesting music, it might be hard to believe. But Trysth knows what they’re doing, they know how to build the pressure, they know how to kick your ass, and they know how to usher you out once you’re done.
Words by: Alex D.
You can stream the track ‘Sever the Stars’ here
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