Cyhra - The Vertigo Trigger - August 2023

[eochaid]

This is what Spotify says:

RTR: Alex Landenburg, Euge Valovirta, Jesper Strömblad, Joacim Keelyn, Marcus Sunesson, Vikram Shankar

LHMST: Alex Landenburg, Anthony Ponce, Euge Valovirta, Jesper Strömblad, Joacim Keelyn, Joacim Lundberg, Jonah Weingarten, Marcus Sunesson

LAL: Alex Landenburg, Euge Valovirta, Jesper Strömblad, Joacim Keelyn, Marcus Sunesson

1000000F: Alex Landenburg, Euge Valovirta, Jesper Strömblad, Joacim Keelyn, Marcus Sunesson

BA: Alex Landenburg, Euge Valovirta, Jesper Strömblad, Joacim Keelyn, Marcus Sunesson

TVYNTH: Alex Landenburg, Elias Holmlid, Euge Valovirta, Jesper Strömblad, Joacim Keelyn, Marcus Sunesson

LIAH: Alex Landenburg, Euge Valovirta, Jesper Strömblad, Joacim Keelyn, Marcus Sunesson

II: Alex Landenburg, Euge Valovirta, Jesper Strömblad, Joacim Keelyn, Jonah Weingarten, Marcus Sunesson

FOMO: Alex Landenburg, Euge Valovirta, Jesper Strömblad, Joacim Keelyn, Marcus Sunesson

A: Alex Landenburg, Euge Valovirta, Jesper Strömblad, Joacim Keelyn, Marcus Sunesson

TOFF: Alex Landenburg, Euge Valovirta, Jesper Strömblad, Joacim Keelyn, Jonah Weingarten, Marcus Sunesson

Having in mind that half of the somgs where ready before he rejoined the band, I can't think of a rational reason as to why Jesper is credited as a songwriter for the whole album. I also fail to see how they need five people to make music like this.

 

[DE4life]

Seems like they just gave the band members all writing credits this time around. We know for a fact that Jesper wasn't involved in the earlier stuff that was released - Jake said as much in an interview. We may never know exactly who contributed to what. Not that it honestly matters - anyone competent in creating basic songs could have come up with this stuff.

 

[Moonshield_]

Finally forced myself to give a proper listen to the new Cyhra album, what strikes me the most is the weaker production
I think it’s not as powerful as it used to be.

Please compare with No Halos in Hell, the beginning riff of « Hit me » hits hard if I can say so but in TVT guitars sound a bit drown in the mix and it’s really hard to enjoy them sometimes. Sound wise, drums are not as enjoyable as they were throughout previous albums too.

Nevertheless, I do enjoy some songs such as :

Ash Light

Live a Little

The Voice You Need to Hear (although Jake’s voice can be a bit suprising in this one)

Life is a Hurricane

If I (really good vibe in this one, like mid 2000’s melodeath with nostalgic twin guitars but with clean vocals of course + great acoustic)

Unfortunately, too much fillers for my tastes and a production that I’m not a fan of.

BUT, great artwork.

I would go with a 6.5/10 for this album when LTM would be 8,5/10 and NHIH 7.5/10

PS: I’ve always failed to understand the huge disappointment NHIH seems to have been for the majority of you guys.
Cyhra is all about catchyness/emotions and NHIH definitely is catchy and brings a lot of emotion. It has great production and great choruses all over the place. Only the artwork was a bit weak as far as I’m concerned.
When I used to drink alone, this album (as the previous one) worked wonderfully to make me reach a state of pure delight (Battle from Within, those amazing piano notes to begin with )

 

[DE4life]

Halos is passable, but let's be honest, it's a pretty big step down from LTM. That was the most disappointing part of the album - rather than expand on their sound, Cyhra distilled it to the most simple and basic parts. The album was heavily directed by Jake, and it shows. Jesper's influence is hugely reduced and the album suffers as a result.

It does have some good stuff on it, but it's still not a patch on LTM.

Now we have another album which veers even further into generic and unmemorable territory. They're getting worse every album.

 

[Xpyro125]

I've been thinking about this for a while, but save for a some of the guitarwork in the last three songs (And whichever one or two songs I mentioned before, I'm too lazy to go back to them right now), I absolutely believe that Jake/the band did a ton of doublespeaking when it came to Jesper's involvement and contributions. He's the bassist for them now, and his contributions were clearly mostly bass and keyboard stuff, as per his credits. They never mentioned how he would be contributing, and we all assumed he'd be back as a guitarist. I'm not saying this as a super cynical thing, but it's probably the truth of the whole thing. It'd make sense too, since he rejoined so late to where yeah, I'd expect him to have little input guitarwise, especially after No Halos' success. Jake mentioned in the interview how Jesper's ideas would typically be the ones pushed through on Letters due to his success ("Okay, but which one of us won a Grammi?"), and No Halos' success likely changed that, at the very least after that album came out. Not sure what actually happened there, but I'm just going to assume that Jesper wasn't nearly as invested in its creation as he was in Letters'.

My opinion on TVT does go against the consensus here, I enjoy it quite a bit more than No Halos, but it's more of a 40% > 55% on the scale, neither of which coming even close to Letters To Myself. It's certainly less metal, and the four songs I don't care for drag it down like a motherfucker, but I can enjoy it more for not being heavy for the sake of being heavy, since I've heard way heavier in my life and thus don't feel it there. They explored more of a keyboard-driven/metalcore sound (Compared to simple arena metal) overall, and while the album could've actually used more of the anthemic feel that No Halos had, I can listen to some of the songs and genuinely enjoy them, even with comparing them to Letters. I don't think they're beating the Amaranthe 2 allegations, even if I don't entirely feel them (Amaranthe 2 would be way cooler than current Cyhra), so great job on that.

 

[Xpyro125]

So the full TVT album stream just popped up in my feed, and to my surprise, the comments are full of people who also think Letters is a masterpiece, are (Aside from two people) disappointed with No Halos, and (Aside from two other people) love this album.

I don't love it, but I certainly agree with the other two points. Either way, it was surprising and fascinating to see that.

Also, "1.000.000 Fahrenheit"'s been growing on me a bit, so that's cool.

 

[DE4life]

I think to some degree it'll be a case of recency bias, people generally tend to overrate new albums and revise their judgements later on. It wouldn't surprise me if a bunch of the people in there expressing disappointment in Halos were saying how great it was 3 years ago. Some of the old album threads on here (particularly Battles) are pretty funny in retrospect. There's an old ASOP thread on here somewhere where I announce that album as the best IF release since Clayman. Recency bias... it gets all of us.

 

[Xpyro125]

Yeah, 100%. Amateras by BSC is definitely one that got the recency bias from me a while back when I don't even listen to most of the songs from it these days.

Funnily enough, I've been enjoying TVT as a "full package" (So minus the four-five songs I don't care for) a bit more recently compared to when it first came out. I think a big part of that is that I don't have that same gutting sense of betrayal that I had with No Halos since not only did it not follow up Letters, the pre-release singles put my expectations in the fucking gutter.

 

[DE4life]

As a whole I find TVT too homogenous to listen to, much like Halos it just gets boring for me very quickly. There's just not enough interesting or creative things happening.

For the most part I'm still listening occasionally to the three songs I highlighted on release - Fahrenheit, The Voice You Need to Hear and Ashlight. Not that much, granted, but every so often.

The other track that's had a weird renaissance for me is Life is a Hurricane. Can't say I cared much for it when it came out as a single, and the solo parts are still terrible, but in general I've actually been enjoying this one since the album dropped. Good vocal melodies throughout and a solid, earworm chorus. It's alright.

 

[Xpyro125]

As a whole I find TVT too homogenous to listen to, much like Halos it just gets boring for me very quickly. There's just not enough interesting or creative things happening.

For the most part I'm still listening occasionally to the three songs I highlighted on release - Fahrenheit, The Voice You Need to Hear and Ashlight. Not that much, granted, but every so often.

The other track that's had a weird renaissance for me is Life is a Hurricane. Can't say I cared much for it when it came out as a single, and the solo parts are still terrible, but in general I've actually been enjoying this one since the album dropped. Good vocal melodies throughout and a solid, earworm chorus. It's alright.

Gonna hard disagree about Hurricane's chorus, but I respect your opinion on it

"Let's Have My Story Told" is surprisingly great, seeing as it's just a No Halos song but good, though I feel like "Let's Have Our Story Told" would fit the lyrics better and be less (In a lack of better words) egocentric. It's a nitpick, but it's one I do care a little about. Quite enjoy the song otherwise.

 

[galvanized]

"Let's Have My Story Told" is surprisingly great, seeing as it's just a No Halos song but good, though I feel like "Let's Have Our Story Told" would fit the lyrics better and be less (In a lack of better words) egocentric. It's a nitpick, but it's one I do care a little about. Quite enjoy the song otherwise.

Totally agree with the title. It sounds like it was written by a narcissist, very off-putting. I actually can’t tell if it’s an error or on purpose. Because Jake seems to present an element of that as part of his rock and roll image. But yeah, hard for me to listen when that line is baked into the song.

 

[DE4life]

This album reads like it was written by somebody who considers themselves the most important person in the universe tbh. Lyrically it's very immature.

 

[DE4life]

'The Voice You Need to Hear' is another very narcissistic one - because the song makes it clear that Jake considers himself the voice we need to hear. The lyrics actually read like some dude who preys on damaged women, lmao. Lad is getting an Anders-style messiah complex, soon he'll be singing for us all to follow him and he'll set us free.

 

[DE4life]

Come to think of it, the lyrics of Live a Little are basically Jake saying everyone except him is wrong. The level of arrogance and condescendence is hilarious, when you really look at the idiotic lyrics.


My mother told me I was half part lion
That I should look upon the great Orion
Communication beyond the stars
Sometimes I feel I belong on Mars
Our generation is condemned by leeches
We see them following religious preachers
So let it out, so let me know
What the hell is going on

All I can say about repulsive leaders
Irresponsible to heal this fever
To clear the mess up we can't sit and wait
The day the atom breaks

Because you know
I'm right

There is no way out
You know I'm right
Time to blind your eyes
You hold the trigger
Will we stay alive
You know I lie
So let me sum it up
Let's live a little

My mother told me
It will be alright
Yet we are running through a constant fight
Reverting nations
That fall apart
I wish we all could live among the stars

But every morning we'll refuel or vision
We take stands on grounds we built on fiction
So let me tell you what's going on
I am right and you are wrong

There is no way out
You know I'm right
Time to blind your eyes
You hold the trigger
Will we stay alive
You know I lie
So let me sum it up
Let's live a little

There is no way out
You know I'm right
Time to blind your eyes
You hold the trigger
Will we stay alive
You know I lie
So let me sum it up
Let's live a little

These are the writings of somebody who's sitting on a very high horse, looking down at everyone else. I think in the verses he's crediting/blaming his mother for his narcissism, but unsure as it isn't exactly clear.

 

[galvanized]

I said it before and I’ll say it again, Cyhra is MILF metal. Most of their fans must be single moms.

 

[Xpyro125]

So regrettably, I was looking through a ton of the music I have in search of stuff to put on a playlist and found that Cyhra has a new single… Only for this and the YouTube video for it to be 10 and 11 seconds respectively. I have no idea what happened here, but the song sounds like an Amaranthe leftover, and I’m not huge on the little of it that exists. I don’t know if I should hope that this is AI generated slop or not, since that would be awful, but this isn’t much better.

It says that the label is now Reigning Phoenix Music, Opeth’s label, but I couldn’t find Cyhra on their site at all nor any connection there. I feel like this was some accident that wasn’t supposed to get out there or be seen, but fuck you, I’ve seen it. Either way, I’m not looking forward to this whatsoever.

 

[The Grayfox]

Yeah, there's probably an announcement coming about a new single/album and record label and some intern did this by accident and let the cat out of the bag early

 

[eochaid]

It sounds as generic as it could be expected from these guys. The title is cringey.

 

[Pallbearer]

Sadly, I believe they permanently plunged into mediocrity and irrelevance after LtM.

 

[Xpyro125]

Completely agreed— But unfortunately, No Halos was received well critically, and TVT was moderately successful. It’s disappointing, if nothing else.