New Cyhra Album 2018-2019

[galvanized]

Did anyone notice the kind of scary Jonathan Davis (or maybe Woods of Ypres) deep talking behind all the verses of Dreams Gone Wrong?

 

[eochaid]

Nope. To be fair, on my second attempt, I skipped the most of the songs after the first chorus.

 

[DE4life]

Half the songs seem boring. That’s fine, many albums are like that I guess.

The other half of the songs have good to AMAZING intros that are immediately thrown away in 10-30s for some calm and lame verse singing. Some also have really cool solos and bridge parts.

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. There are quite a few songs where I heard the intro and I was like "okay, this sounds pretty cool, this might be a solid track"... then the verse hits and almost always sucks the energy out of the song. Usually when the song gets to around the 2:00-2:30 mark you get some more nice sounding guitarwork, after which almost every song ends with the chorus again.

Jake is the biggest problem on the album for me, and that's a shame as I thought he brought a lot to LtM. This time around his vocals just seem to take away from the cool stuff that's going on instrumentally. It's not that his singing is bad - it isn't, he's a very good singer - but it's just boring. It feels like you could splice almost any verse or chorus from one song into another, except "Lost in Time" due to it being a ballad.

These guys have so much talent, but this album feels very lazy in terms of structure and style. Actually very similar to IF post-SOAPF. There's some really good guitarwork from Euge/Jesper, some solid drumming here and there, and the vocals all sound technically good... but in this instance the whole is not more than the sum of its parts.

 

[eochaid]

That's what they call modern metal. Pop structures and vocals. Catchy choruses. No deep music.

Ten years ago, the people praising them would have called them posers and sellouts.

Today is trending.

 

[DE4life]

I see a lot of praise for this album so maybe you're right. The problem is I don't even think the music is particularly catchy. By the time the 5th mid-tempo song came on and sounded exactly the same as all the others I was incredibly bored. By comparison, I never once got bored of Amaranthe's first two albums, even though they are both essentially pop metal with catchy choruses.

Something about No Halos in Hell just rubs me the wrong way. I've listened to and enjoyed plenty of basic pop metal, but I wasn't enjoying much of this at all.

 

[eochaid]

You're right. It becomes very predictable with every new song. By the end of the album you just want to skip the songs as fast as possible.

It's not particularly great on its genre.

 

[ciko_gfb]

At this point, I gotta agree with ciko about Anders uniqueness. I mean, the guy is an incompetent singer and an average frontman, but he has his own style.

Well, I'm in shock now. "I gotta agree with ciko".. This one brings tears to my eyes actually! But I'm glad that you've had understand my point. Jake might be a good singer but there's nothing unique about him. So that's why I don't like Chyra.

If it hadn't the name Jesper behind it I wouldn't even have listened to this album.

Agreed 100%. That's the only reason I checked the first album, I liked a few songs but thats about it. Don't think I will check the new one.

 

[A88]

So, here it goes:

1. Out of My Life - Cool melodic intro. Catchy chorus. Guitars lost in the mix during the verses. Cheap electronics all the way through the song without adding anything useful. Euge jerking off for a few seconds without any direction. Out of my way, out of my life... Yeah, I get it why they choose this one as a single. It's a basic, catchy, pop tune. Nothing wrong or great with this one. 6/10

2. No Halos in Hell - Some good mid-tempo riffing in the beginning. For like 20 seconds max and then we're back to the random generic slow verse. Oh, I'm beginning to see a pattern here. Chorus with some basic power chords and some forgettable singing. All that once more and another meaningless guitar solo (I do so fucking hate it when solo guitarist can't write a decent solo). Another chorus. As soon as the song ended, I forgot most of it. 5/10

3. Battle from Within - New level of popyness. How did they manage to make such cheap-sounding effects and electronics for this album? This is fucking atrocious. Chorus is decent I guess, but the song as a whole really has nothing to offer musically. 5/10

4. I Am the One - No, you are not. Begins like some bad melodic/power metal song. WTF is that chorus? Better solo section, but that's it. 4/10

5. Bye Bye Forever - What a stupid title. Bye bye beautiful? OK it is a shit song. But I like the vocal melody in the chorus. Not really my thing, but at least is different than the rest of the crap on this album. Nice acoustic passage towards the end. Oh, but of course there is some random electronic malfunction in the background. 5/10

6. Dreams Gone Wrong - This should be the title of the whole album. Barring simple cheesy melody and cheap electronics, this is actually a decent catchy tune. Nothing deep, but quite pleasant and uptempo. 7/10

7. Lost in Time - Well, just lost. Meh, boring. 5/10

8. Kings Tonight - Cheap power strikes again. It's like they are trying to take the worst elements from different genres and combine them in one big clustefuck of a song. Wtf is happening with those electronics!? 4/10

9. I Had Your Back - Wow, nice electronics AND a good riff!? This is new. Even verse has some energy. But now the chorus is a generic B side. Some random soloing, but hey I can't complain at this point. Listenable song with a shitty chorus. 6/10

10. Blood Brothers - Bad idea, as I know a better song with the same title. Nice acoustics, nice melodic line. I have a feeling this band has a serious identity crisis. They really can't decide between being a mellow power metal band and cheap modern/pop metal one. I guess this one has some energy and good ideas. 7/10

11. Hit Me - First of all, no album should have this many songs... Good riff. Probably leftover from the previous album. But straight away we go into that slo-mo verse and a really, really weird chorus. I can imagine Jake jumping around dressed as a Native American and singing Hit, hit me, hit me hard... Eleven songs into the album, we have a decent melody at last. All together, shit song. 5/10

12. Man of Eternal Rain - Yeah, just what I need now. More cheap electronics. Decent riff and some double bass drumming. Finally... Nope, back to slow verses. Catchy chorus though. Sounds like something from LtM. Listenable solo if a bit generic. OK song. 7/10

13. Kings and Queens - Oh, a nice melody/riff. To be honest, this one seems a bit more energetic than the rest of the stuff, but at this point the whole verse-chorus structure sound so similar in every song, that I can't be bothered to pay attention. Decent song, but nothing I will remember or listen again. 6/10

14. Lies - More shitty sounds. More generic melodies. More slow verses. More boring choruses. Some weird electro shit I can't and won't explain. Lies, lies, lies - this one is directed at those BS reviews saying the album is good. 4/10

15. Lost in Time (2) - Christ above, how many fillers did they record for this one!? Same shit as the last time. Marginally better. Wants to be a good, majestic ballad, but just isn't. 6/10

16. Dreams Gone Wrong (2) - Fine acoustics, but the sound is all over the place. Actually I like this one less than the full dist version. 6/10

17. Kings Tonight (2) - Works better than the first song. 6/10

18. I Am the One (2) - Ugh, just one more... I like acoustics, but some things you just can't improve much. 5/10

So, all in all, I guess the album is somewhere around 5/10 and that's me being generous. Bloated, generic, cheap electronics ridden piece of modern fake metal. Sad. LtM had some real promise.

 

[galvanized]

First of all, no album should have this many songs.

I was thinking the same thing 5 songs in.

Good breakdown. The “I Am The One” chorus and vocal line repeated over and over is annoying as hell. Immediately one of the more annoying songs. BUT I will give respect for the verse vocals. Much better than the other songs.

 

[galvanized]

I see a lot of praise for this album so maybe you're right. The problem is I don't even think the music is particularly catchy. By the time the 5th mid-tempo song came on and sounded exactly the same as all the others I was incredibly bored. By comparison, I never once got bored of Amaranthe's first two albums, even though they are both essentially pop metal with catchy choruses.

Something about No Halos in Hell just rubs me the wrong way. I've listened to and enjoyed plenty of basic pop metal, but I wasn't enjoying much of this at all.

I think they needed a producer or label to be up front and honest with them and condense everything into 10 songs. They should’ve distilled everything down and re-written songs.

They kept saying how the writing process was more organic because they wrote together... but they did it in the studio. Same shit as In Flames.

How about you write the songs together before recording? Distill the essence. Get critical feedback. Dwell on this shit, one song at a time. It’s no wonder this album is all over the place because no one can keep track of this many songs all at once.

Maybe they were trying to populate their set list. Basically jump to a catalog depth equivalent to a 3 album band. But they were too hasty.

 

[galvanized]

The problem is I don't even think the music is particularly catchy

Agreed. A chorus or song can’t be called catchy if I can’t remember it. Or differentiate it from any other song.

 

[DE4life]

Completely agree that the album needed to have less songs. It's funny though because Reroute to Remain has 14 songs and it's great from start to finish. An album can have that many songs if there's enough variety and creative intent. Unfortunately Cyhra exhausted their creative efforts pretty quickly.

Personally I would remove Lost in Time, Kings Tonight, I Had Your Back and Lies. That would leave us with:

1. Out Of My Life
2. No Halos in Hell
3. Battles From Within
4. I Am The One
5. Bye Bye Forever
6. Dreams Gone Wrong
7. Blood Brothers
8. Hit Me
9. Man of Eternal Rain
10. Kings and Queens

It still wouldn't be a great album but it would be a lot more manageable than what they ended up giving us. That section in the middle with Lost in Time, Kings Tonight and I Had Your Back was when I started zoning out. Lies is also a pretty shit ending song and brings nothing new to the table whatsoever, so get rid of it.

 

[DE4life]

3. Battle from Within - New level of popyness. How did they manage to make such cheap-sounding effects and electronics for this album? This is fucking atrocious. Chorus is decent I guess, but the song as a whole really has nothing to offer musically. 5/10

I wanted less electronics on this album, but somehow we've ended up with more and they sound worse than on LtM. It's like a bad joke.

5. Bye Bye Forever - What a stupid title. Bye bye beautiful? OK it is a shit song. But I like the vocal melody in the chorus. Not really my thing, but at least is different than the rest of the crap on this album. Nice acoustic passage towards the end. Oh, but of course there is some random electronic malfunction in the background. 5/10

Reminds me a bit of Alias, which was similarly annoying poppy shit but had that nice acoustic bridge in the middle. Not sure why they needed to have the electronics underneath it though, totally unnecessary. There's some nice guitarwork between 00:15 - 00:30. Verses on this one aren't actually too bad and the chorus is an earworm, but I just can't take "bye bye" seriously. It sounds really childish. They should have just used "goodbye".

Oh and for the record I actually like "Bye Bye Beautiful" in fact I like Nightwish's Dark Passion Play album as a whole, but that's an example of good electronics and varied, interesting songs.

7. Lost in Time - Well, just lost. Meh, boring. 5/10

I actually had some hope for this one as I felt Closure and Inside a Lullaby were two of the stronger songs off LtM. But no. This one is really boring.

10. Blood Brothers - Bad idea, as I know a better song with the same title. Nice acoustics, nice melodic line. I have a feeling this band has a serious identity crisis. They really can't decide between being a mellow power metal band and cheap modern/pop metal one. I guess this one has some energy and good ideas. 7/10

Yeah it's weird, it's almost like Cyhra wants to be a PM band but at the same time they don't sound anything like one. A lot of the song titles and lyrics are very PM-esque, but the music isn't and neither are the vocals. If I want to listen to some good PM I have many more options way better than this.

11. Hit Me - First of all, no album should have this many songs... Good riff. Probably leftover from the previous album. But straight away we go into that slo-mo verse and a really, really weird chorus. I can imagine Jake jumping around dressed as a Native American and singing Hit, hit me, hit me hard... Eleven songs into the album, we have a decent melody at last. All together, shit song. 5/10

The opening riffs for this one are directly ripped off from another band. I have heard these before but I honestly can't remember where. I actually think there's a good song in here somewhere. Opening 30 seconds are good, the keys aren't too bad and the verses sound like something off LtM. I also really like the solo at 02:45. Unfortunately the chorus fucking ruins this song, and that's a huge shame.

14. Lies - More shitty sounds. More generic melodies. More slow verses. More boring choruses. Some weird electro shit I can't and won't explain. Lies, lies, lies - this one is directed at those BS reviews saying the album is good. 4/10

Those weird. awful electric sounds start at 02:52 in this song. They start at 02:48 in Here to Save You. It's like they copied the idea but made it far worse. I honestly can't explain what they were thinking here. What a terrible song to finish the album on.

I didn't bother listening to the acoustic stuff as by this point I really don't give a fuck anymore. None of the songs in question were good or interesting enough in normal form to warrant me listening to an acoustic version.

 

[A88]

There are like 10 good riffs, melodies, vocal lines, acoustic parts... on the whole album.

Somebody should have said: OK guys, let us delete everything else and start again.

 

[galvanized]

The opening riffs for this one are directly ripped off from another band. I have heard these before but I honestly can't remember where. I actually think there's a good song in here somewhere. Opening 30 seconds are good, the keys aren't too bad and the verses sound like something off LtM. I also really like the solo at 02:45. Unfortunately the chorus fucking ruins this song, and that's a huge shame.

At the Gates/Haunted intro and then Kalmah/CoB keyboards? Way too short.

I was just driving in the car listening to this song and thought the same thing. Intro riff ends too early, but the verse is tolerable if you can get over your disappointment. Where they went wrong is the chorus. They tried to build to the same intensity as the intro but couldn’t. Listen to the build up and layering, they really tried. But the chorus should’ve went fucking hard like the intro. The solo also ended abruptly and had some weird chopping effect at the end. But if Hit Me totally reworked the chorus to match the intro intensity it would be a good song.

 

[galvanized]

I didn't bother listening to the acoustic stuff as by this point I really don't give a fuck anymore. None of the songs in question were good or interesting enough in normal form to warrant me listening to an acoustic version.

Just do it. Like eochaid said before, the acoustics feature more raw vocals more suited to the genre. Listen to I Am the One acoustic. In my opinion they show a side of Jake that no other Cyhra song does.

 

[galvanized]

There are like 10 good riffs, melodies, vocal lines, acoustic parts... on the whole album.

Somebody should have said: OK guys, let us delete everything else and start again.

Yeah, bands do that all the time. It’s called a demo. Standard professional recording practice. This is basically a polished demo.

I really wish someone would take all the good intros, bridges, and solos and just make a 6 minute “epic metal” song.

 

[DE4life]

At the Gates/Haunted intro and then Kalmah/CoB keyboards? Way too short.

I was just driving in the car listening to this song and thought the same thing. Intro riff ends too early, but the verse is tolerable. Where they went wrong is the chorus. They tried to build to the same intensity as the intro but couldn’t. Chorus should’ve went fucking hard like the intro. The solo ended abruptly and had some weird chopping effect at the end. But if Hit Me totally reworked the chorus to match the intro intensity it would be a good song.

The riffs are literally a copy of another song I've heard. Really annoying that I can't specify the band or track I'm pretty sure it's a melodeath band though. Either way those riffs & the solo from this song do not match the chorus in any way and that's a problem.

 

[galvanized]

The riffs are literally a copy of another song I've heard. Really annoying that I can't specify the band or track I'm pretty sure it's a melodeath band though. Either way those riffs & the solo from this song do not match the chorus in any way and that's a problem.

You gotta figure it out and tell me. I need that song!

 

[DE4life]

There are like 10 good riffs, melodies, vocal lines, acoustic parts... on the whole album.

Somebody should have said: OK guys, let us delete everything else and start again.

I really do think the reason the album ended up like this was because Jesper took a step back from the group. Last album was a clear mix of Jake/Jesper, this one sounds, to me, like 90% Jake, 8% Euge and 2% Jesper. I just don't hear his influence in any significant form.