Hyperborea - Umbra (CD)

HYPERBOREA is a Bulgarian band from Sofia that has a lot of Death Metal in their veins. These guys are aggressive, precise and have recently released their newest hate art titled "Umbra" and that's what we are going to talk about.

The opening song from the album is the instrumental "Jung's Forewarn" which has a dark and beautiful acoustic guitar that makes place for the speech that sounds like a radio mix. "Home Of My Misery" starts out with a cool fast drum that is followed by some groovy guitar and a solo. Right after the traditional Death Metal guitar riffs hits in and it's a direct song. "From Within" starts with a different kind of riff that even reminded me of New Metal guitars. It has a cool groovy and a really good bass sound. This song sounds more technical and there's more use of high guttural vocals, which I prefer. The guitar solo surprised me, because its pure melodic and I think that it gave the song a new ambiance.

"Silent Stream" follows the same line from the previous one and I think that it sounds much better. There's a great use of different kinds of guttural vocals here and the instrumental is just awesome. It might be the band's thing. Screw the "Supremacists" starts as heavy as it should. I could totally see the band on stage by listening to that song and all the Metalheads banging their head and going wild. The guitar work here is amazing and the drums as well.

"Two Extremities" is a traditional Death Metal song with nothing new in it. "Unwelcome" starts with a kind of space sound that reminded me of galaxies and its calm. The guitars here are melodic and aggressive and I really liked that. I think that the band could develop more that kind of sound, because its more unique. The last two songs "Wrong Planet Syndrome" and "Atavistic Fear" have the pure Death Metal on their style and I believe that these two were pretty good to end this album.

HYPERBOREA have written and released a good album and I think that the fans of the style will be more than happy to listen to it. The production is tight, the instruments were really well executed and the songs are well written. http://www.metal-temple.com