Cyhra - The Vertigo Trigger - August 2023

[DE4life]

Yeah sounds like the same uninspired shit as usual, along with the usual stupid, unoriginal song title.

 

[Xpyro125]

Don’t know how I didn’t find this before, but the track somehow got less horrible with the finished product. I’m desperately hoping it doesn’t resemble this demo version whatsoever because this… This may just trump Ready to Rumble as their worst song if it is like the post.

 

[DE4life]

Does he not realise how embarrassing those lyrics sound? I mean, look, I'm not expecting Shakespeare or anything... but for fuck's sake.

When shit's about to hit the fan
We're in a heist without a plan
???? with superman
It doesn't matter where we go
I hear a voice from down below
Let's do the best we can
Like superman

How exactly did Cyhra go from stuff like Black Wings and Closure to this garbage? "Let's do the best we can, like superman" ? Really? That's the best you've got?

 

[Xpyro125]

Does he not realise how embarrassing those lyrics sound? I mean, look, I'm not expecting Shakespeare or anything... but for fuck's sake.

When shit's about to hit the fan
We're in a heist without a plan
???? with superman
It doesn't matter where we go
I hear a voice from down below
Let's do the best we can
Like superman

How exactly did Cyhra go from stuff like Black Wings and Closure to this garbage? "Let's do the best we can, like superman" ? Really? That's the best you've got?

Absolutely incredible question, I wish I had an answer for you.

 

[The Grayfox]

I'm happy I lost interest after the first album. Seems much less disappointing now. I only wish Jesper wouldn't waste so much time on it.

 

[Xpyro125]

I would say I don’t know how I missed this, but I very rarely remember the band exists. Have quite possibly the most Cyhra thing I’ve read in a while— Even the author is fucking baffled.

CYHRA Fend Off Thief Trying to Break Into Tour Bus, Then Weirdly Brag About It - Metal Injection

Swedish metal supergroup Cyhra subdued a would-be thief who tried to break into their van last night, then put out a press release about it.

metalinjection.net

 

[ThePhobiac]

I would say I don’t know how I missed this, but I very rarely remember the band exists. Have quite possibly the most Cyhra thing I’ve read in a while— Even the author is fucking baffled.

CYHRA Fend Off Thief Trying to Break Into Tour Bus, Then Weirdly Brag About It - Metal Injection

Swedish metal supergroup Cyhra subdued a would-be thief who tried to break into their van last night, then put out a press release about it.

metalinjection.net

RESPECT.

Jake laid the smack down on him.

He was like, "Are you ready to rumble?"

 

[DE4life]

Imagine being given a citizens arrest by the guy who wrote the lyrics to NHIH and TVT, lmao. Jake was probably singing Superman whilst holding him down.

"Metal supergroup", yeah, sure. 1/3 of Amaranthe vocalists nearly a decade ago and Landenberg, yeah, fine. The rest, really? Do Euge and Sunesson really count as supergroup material? Not going to count Jesper as I just don't believe he's done anything serious with Cyhra since LTM.

 

[Xpyro125]

Imagine being given a citizens arrest by the guy who wrote the lyrics to NHIH and TVT, lmao. Jake was probably singing Superman whilst holding him down.

Oh, hey, maybe that’s what inspired him to write those truly riveting lyrics. Simply unparalleled.

"Metal supergroup", yeah, sure. 1/3 of Amaranthe vocalists nearly a decade ago and Landenberg, yeah, fine. The rest, really? Do Euge and Sunesson really count as supergroup material? Not going to count Jesper as I just don't believe he's done anything serious with Cyhra since LTM.

I know Euge from Shining (Yes, Niklas Kvarforth’s band, contractual disputes with that band being why he wasn’t given writing credits on Letters unless if you look deeply for them— Which I was outright told by Euge on IG) and I think Sunesson a major songwriter in Engel with Niclas Engelin, but I admittedly haven’t listened to too much from either band.

It really is aggravating how they pulled a bait and switch with Jesper in TVT. I feel some of his influence guitar-wise in the last few tracks on the album in particular, but just a little bit. Otherwise, yeah, he’s the bassist. They weren’t lying about him being super involved again, they just didn’t say exactly how he was involved. I don’t know if it was because his involvement was enough to Jake or if it was because it’d push away a ton of fans to be upfront about it, but if nothing else Jesper was rather involved with the album. I do know he was also involved in No Halos, but whereas it was him doing the main writing in Letters with Euge writing the solos, it felt more like a 50/50 on No Halos, maybe including Jake too for all we know, and it shows if nothing else.

 

[DE4life]

Jake said somewhere in an interview a while back that he essentially wrote all of NHIH. Not sure if he was just bullshitting or misquoted, but he was pretty clear that he was the main creative force behind that album (and if so, it shows). Honestly the only time I hear any major Jesper influence is Out of my Life (Karma ripoff) and Man of Eternal Rain. The rest is just cookie-cutter shit that any amateur musician could come up with. There are some nice guitar melodies here and there and the odd solo which sounds decent, but it mostly sounds like Euge to me in those sections - and it was Euge posting all the snippets in the run up to the album with various riffs, which I assume were his.

I honestly hear zero Jesper on TVT. If he contributed to it then I could only say what a disappointment. Also nobody wants Jesper on fucking bass. What's the point.

I appreciate Euge and Sunesson are known in metal circles, but supergroup still seems like a stretch. The Halo Effect - that's a metal supergroup. Cyhra... not so much.

 

[Xpyro125]

Jake said somewhere in an interview a while back that he essentially wrote all of NHIH. Not sure if he was just bullshitting or misquoted, but he was pretty clear that he was the main creative force behind that album (and if so, it shows).

I’m going to believe it’s half bullshit, particularly going by the credits here.



I believe he gave the direction that he wanted the album to go in and more or less drove the process with Euge and Jesper writing where they did. I always knew Battle From Within was Jake’s due to the personal story regarding his brother and the actually fine lyrics and music video, and Hit Me being Euge isn’t surprising since it’s also actually good.

Honestly the only time I hear any major Jesper influence is Out of my Life (Karma ripoff) and Man of Eternal Rain. The rest is just cookie-cutter shit that any amateur musician could come up with. There are some nice guitar melodies here and there and the odd solo which sounds decent, but it mostly sounds like Euge to me in those sections - and it was Euge posting all the snippets in the run up to the album with various riffs, which I assume were his.

Euge posted the vast majority of things, but a good year or so before the album’s release, Jesper released the main riff (And ending note/fadeout/whatever) for Lies, which I always loved. I would definitely agree that they went too far in the bog standard arena rock direction, with Bye Bye Forever (Horrible title) being one of the few actually pretty cool songs. Personally, I would love to see more of Jesper and Euge driving the ship guitarwise and Jake vocally, but I think particularly with the creative restructuring post-Letters, we just won’t get that.

I honestly hear zero Jesper on TVT. If he contributed to it then I could only say what a disappointment. Also nobody wants Jesper on fucking bass. What's the point.

Honestly, no idea what the point is other than to keep Jesper in the band and writing process. I get the feeling he was just out of the writing process for the majority of it because he just wasn’t mentally or creatively there— And that’s a genuinely fair thing. He was going through quite a bit at the time, having gotten married and then presumably divorced sometime from 2019-2021(?), which has been completely scrubbed clean from both his and his ex(?)-wife’s social medias.

I appreciate Euge and Sunesson are known in metal circles, but supergroup still seems like a stretch. The Halo Effect - that's a metal supergroup. Cyhra... not so much.

Shining is an unfortunately big (and rightly controversial) black metal name, particularly due to Kvarforth, but Sunesson and Engel itself both are undoubtedly smaller. I do see Cyhra as a supergroup— And it especially was when Peter was in the band… For the brief stint he was before he got replaced by a machine in live performances.

 

[Moonshield_]

So, what about the new Cyhra single ?

 

[Xpyro125]

It feels weird to say this, but it’s fine. Completely unremarkable, which feels weird given the actual fucking rap verse, but I just don’t have anything to say. It’s more diet Amaranthe than Cyhra, moreso in the sense that it just feels like something Jake wrote completely himself in the vein of that band. No guitarwork to note, nothing at all to note.

Edit: I say it’s fine, but I mean that more in a derogatory sense rather than saying it’s good. The vocals sound pleasant, but otherwise there is genuinely nothing here.

 

[eochaid]

Why are we doing this to ourselves?

 

[DE4life]

Production continues to be ass. It's embarrassingly worse than the last three albums, and you can really tell their budget is cut. With that said, there's no excuse for it to sound this muddy. I've heard home productions from people on YouTube that sound better than this.

With better production the song would be an okay pop-metal track, I guess. The rap verse is shit though. I don't have a problem if a band wants to incorporate something like that into a song, but this is just generic, which perfectly encapsulates post-LTM Cyhra.

Funny thing is I'm not usually someone who focuses on production - but when the music is also incredibly boring it just makes things even worse. I didn't pay much attention to the lyrics, but what I did hear sounded really weak.

 

[Xpyro125]

My headphones died a couple weeks ago, but I 100% believe you since not only was it Jake and Euge producing and mixing it, the mastering was outsourced. No idea why they spent the money on fucking mastering when that can’t fix shit production, but maybe they’re confident in it.

In trying to find who mastered it again, I found a Blabbermouth article that just… They had to have paid for that review. The reporter noted the ‘heavy riffing’, and Jake said Cyhra’s veering into heavier territory… Huh? Why are we lying now? Why are we just outright lying, Jake?

Real shit though, why does Euge even stick around? Whether we like his contributions on No Halos and TVT or not, he is a talented guitarist with a good ear for melody and soloing. These two singles have absolutely wasted that talent, just having downtuned generic guitarwork that actual beginners can write. I don’t think that much was his decision, and I can’t imagine it’s fulfilling given just how much indulgence there was on TVT.

The song is still just eh, but I did genuinely forget it completely after 20 minutes. Even the hardcore fanbase isn’t showing up for it, so I get the feeling they won’t do so for the album.

 

[Moonshield_]

I've just listened to the song, production is very muddy indeed. The rap part...

 

[Xpyro125]

Got too many Cyhra ads for it to not feel like a sign… But honestly, this one’s decent, but generic alt rock/metal. It’s not bad at all, but everything here is just first draft material. I think if they had revised things a bit, added some, any technicality to the lead guitarwork, and if there had been a solo, I might genuinely enjoy it. More than anything, it feels like store brand version Where the Dead Ships Dwell through and through, but I don’t hate it. Marcus did a decent enough job writing the guitarwork, the entirety of the band was actually involved in recording this time, and the production and mixing are good enough. I can see why newer Cyhra fans would enjoy it, even if it could never compare to the even pretty good songs from the band.

The acting is just cringeworthy as fuck though, Jake is really not helping himself beat the “Amaranthe 2” allegations with it.

 

[DE4life]

I mean, it's better than the other recent songs, but that isn't saying much. Still an instantly forgettable track that adds nothing to Cyhra's 'legacy' or indeed music in general. It's just music that exists for the sake of existing. Production still sounds flat as fuck, too. No punch whatsoever.

Much like Cyhra's other recent output, this could easily have been created by AI - except, AI would do a better job of sounding creative. When using Suno I've had the AI just randomly decide to rock out at the end of a song and it sounds far more spontaneous and interesting than anything Cyhra has put out since their first album.

Also, fuck, Jake looks like he's aged 20 years since Cyhra started. I went back and watched the Karma video and it's crazy how much younger and healthier he looks compared to now. As much as I rag on Cyhra as a band, and Jake's lyrics, I hope he's alright. Karma video also reminded me how cool Cyhra used to be, and it was kinda sad to see Jesper and Peter featured so prominently in that video. What could have been if they'd kept that lineup going with the same input from Jesper.

We surely have to assume Jesper has zero to do with the latest releases from a musical standpoint, beyond maybe doing the bass? Guitarwork has absolutely no recognisable Jesper magic at all (neither did anything on TVT, for the record, even though he supposedly contributed).

 

[Xpyro125]

I mean, it's better than the other recent songs, but that isn't saying much. Still an instantly forgettable track that adds nothing to Cyhra's 'legacy' or indeed music in general. It's just music that exists for the sake of existing. Production still sounds flat as fuck, too. No punch whatsoever.

Much like Cyhra's other recent output, this could easily have been created by AI - except, AI would do a better job of sounding creative. When using Suno I've had the AI just randomly decide to rock out at the end of a song and it sounds far more spontaneous and interesting than anything Cyhra has put out since their first album.

Also, fuck, Jake looks like he's aged 20 years since Cyhra started. I went back and watched the Karma video and it's crazy how much younger and healthier he looks compared to now. As much as I rag on Cyhra as a band, and Jake's lyrics, I hope he's alright. Karma video also reminded me how cool Cyhra used to be, and it was kinda sad to see Jesper and Peter featured so prominently in that video. What could have been if they'd kept that lineup going with the same input from Jesper.

We surely have to assume Jesper has zero to do with the latest releases from a musical standpoint, beyond maybe doing the bass? Guitarwork has absolutely no recognisable Jesper magic at all (neither did anything on TVT, for the record, even though he supposedly contributed).

It’s weird because this new album very much feels like the sharp decline and last breath of a dying band when I don’t really think it was meant to be the case or even should be. Nuclear Blast pushed Cyhra surprisingly hard even with TVT, but the incident of the refusing to fund their tour visas raised massive alarm bells. I get the feeling the band has been even more tumultuous internally than most people realize, moreso in the professional sense than personal, especially with the shifts throughout Jesper’s recent life. Either way, it’s just weird. I’m not going to pretend that they were in their prime— It’s been a downward slope from the very beginning— But they very well should be in it.

In a way, I get the feeling that Jake’s making music just because he feels like making music, and I get that. I also get that it really wouldn’t get much traction off name alone too. However, it was never one man’s band, it was for better and for worse, a supergroup. That’s what most fans really loved about it in the beginning. I don’t really think Jake is in denial or anything— But acknowledging any or all of the volatility would pretty much be the death knell to whoever’s actually stuck around with them.

I think Jesper’s started became more involved in the Band again towards the end of TVT’s writing process, at least since what seems to be late in No Halos’ writing process and early in TVT’s writing process. He does seem strangely absent from this new stuff, but considering just how involved he is in THE, I think it’s that his priorities have shifted again. He was definitely a bit involved in DOTL, but stepped away from it early on, which would line up with coming back to Cyhra late in TVT’s writing, just as the bassist. Jake had recently gotten Marcus involved by that point, and I’m guessing from a mix of being excited to work and write with him and of not wanting to come off like a dick for shifting his spot in the band, Jesper became the bassist, especially since it was something he already had experience in doing. It’s not a decision I’d agree with in terms of quality, but I don’t think Jake felt the need to prove anything after Letters and No Halos. I think the split from Amaranthe weighed pretty heavily on him in the beginning, and it was inspiration to get the best out of the band that he could— And honestly? Cyhra was great for that. I wouldn’t wish for Jake to be hung up on it, but I do wish he kept a bit of a competitive spirit to want to rise above them in terms of popularity and results, at least so Cyhra would’ve stayed good. But I think with the passing of time, with getting it out of his system, with being a father, with the music kinda just becoming the music and not close friends in a specific, pained spot in life, it just makes sense why things ended up this way— And on a personal level, I’m glad things got better. Jesper seems to be less involved in Cyhra now because he’s genuinely excited and inspired working with THE, given how much more involved he’s been with MOTU and even everything post-release. I don’t know if there were ever tensions between him or Jake, but with THE being a good creative outlet for Jesper, and Jake just wanting to make music, I think it’s easier for them to just comfortably settle into how things are with Cyhra— And at that point, it does seem like they’re recording as friends again. I think if it was anything different Jesper would’ve left Cyhra officially by now.

The only thing I can reasonably hope for with the new record is that the spacing between the writing period of the singles and the rest of the album are as distant as they were with TVT, since the majority of TVT’s tracks were far better than the first three singles. Something like Let’s Have My Story Told would’ve actually made for a surprisingly cool lead single… You know, compared to fucking Ready to Rumble.