Nyia - Head Held High
Candlelight Records - CANDLE098CD - 2004
By Philip Whitehouse
If you're looking for easy listening, then I advise that you stay well away from Nyia. Even if you're forewarned that this project includes members of Vader (Jaroslaw Labieniec, guitarist), Prophecy (Szymon Czech, guitarist and Michael Pawluc, vocalist) and Kobong (Wojciech Szymanski, drummer), there's no way you can be ready for the head-crushing Nyia unleash during the 24 minutes that make up their debut album. Impossible to pin down to a certain genre, elements of chaotic-spazz-grind mingle with noisecore dissonance, death metal riffage, lurching mid-tempo passages and some downright disturbing multi-tracked near-whispered vocal outpourings.
Opener 'Behind The God' explodes from the speakers like white-hot shrapnel from the barrel of a blunderbuss, and the pace rarely lets up. Occasionally, tracks like 'Everything Is A Dream' come along to totally disorient the listener by slowing the pace down to a crawl, introducing hideously unpleasant seasickness-inducing guitar histrionics and conjuring a convincingly nightmarish atmosphere... and then it's back to being pinned to the wall with furiously battering rhythms.
Like I said, not easy listening at all - in fact, it's quite hard to actually like this album. Its impact is visceral rather than emotional, a series of blows to the head delivered by a band who have absolutely no interest in pandering to the conventions of genre, songwriting or even what music should sound like. If that sounds like your kind of thing, then by all means go and check Nyia out. If you're looking for pleasant background music on the other hand, run the other way.
7/10
Nyia Official Website
Candlelight Records Website
Candlelight Records - CANDLE098CD - 2004
By Philip Whitehouse
If you're looking for easy listening, then I advise that you stay well away from Nyia. Even if you're forewarned that this project includes members of Vader (Jaroslaw Labieniec, guitarist), Prophecy (Szymon Czech, guitarist and Michael Pawluc, vocalist) and Kobong (Wojciech Szymanski, drummer), there's no way you can be ready for the head-crushing Nyia unleash during the 24 minutes that make up their debut album. Impossible to pin down to a certain genre, elements of chaotic-spazz-grind mingle with noisecore dissonance, death metal riffage, lurching mid-tempo passages and some downright disturbing multi-tracked near-whispered vocal outpourings.
Opener 'Behind The God' explodes from the speakers like white-hot shrapnel from the barrel of a blunderbuss, and the pace rarely lets up. Occasionally, tracks like 'Everything Is A Dream' come along to totally disorient the listener by slowing the pace down to a crawl, introducing hideously unpleasant seasickness-inducing guitar histrionics and conjuring a convincingly nightmarish atmosphere... and then it's back to being pinned to the wall with furiously battering rhythms.
Like I said, not easy listening at all - in fact, it's quite hard to actually like this album. Its impact is visceral rather than emotional, a series of blows to the head delivered by a band who have absolutely no interest in pandering to the conventions of genre, songwriting or even what music should sound like. If that sounds like your kind of thing, then by all means go and check Nyia out. If you're looking for pleasant background music on the other hand, run the other way.
7/10
Nyia Official Website
Candlelight Records Website
Not my cup of tea, but I acknowledge their brutality!
