Introduction
Hybrid Nightmares, labelling themselves an ‘Extreme Metal’ band are a five-piece ensemble from Melbourne. Formed in 2008 they have been playing sets in Melbourne ever since, putting on shows characterised by their ‘extreme image’. Having a bit of a dig reveals luminescent body paint and robes alongside more typical Black Metal apparel. Citing a pluralist list of influences, the band has forwarded a list of mainly later wave Black Metal which gestures somewhat towards Norway as their key influences: Dimmu Borgir, Immortal, Behemoth, Satyricon and Cradle of Filth.
They’ve toured Australia and shared the stage alongside Enslaved Beyond Creation and Gloryhammer, as well as Ne’Obliviscaris, Be’lakor and Psycroptic. The First Age is the first instalment of a collection of albums centring around the Four Ages of the Yuga principle of Hindu philosophy, in which the universe is created and destroyed in a cycle of four stages ever 4.1-8.2 billion years, in which the world begins in the Golden Age of Satya and ends in the Age of Darkness, Kali, influenced by the movements of the solar system.
The First Age
The album opens with Satya (Age of Truth) as some primeval wind rises off a lonely scape. Enter an arpeggio and melodic strumming, a harmonically open-ended structure that oscillates wistfully between the minor home chord and a more bittersweet predominant, where it settles. The music grows, maintaining its distinct predominant flavour, hinting at the resolution but whisking away a sense of harmonic direction, leaving us lifted but a harmonically active antecedent (setup) with a relatively settled consequent (answer).
The result – the call to movement, to progression struggles to be heard here, the heart of a static world is called towards innervation, but is late to respond. Enter the drums, propelling us forward, kickstarting the beat of a long quiet place. But this change is heralded by the emergence of the acoustic solo, here accompanying an Aeolian progression, diverted into a cadential 6/4 cadence which inevitably begins the forward momentum as the world awakens. This harmony drives us through the reduction in texture, where the guitar is left with its initial whistful tone, but now irrevocably changed by the waking of a slumbering world, it is left with the forward harmonic progression which cannot be unheard.
This is really intelligent and considerate songwriting. In fact, one could potentially end the conceptual discussion here – the piece powerfully encapsulates the movement and change within HN’s projection of Satya. Musically, the album is interesting if somewhat fragmented. There are a lot of great riffs in the music, and especially where HN allow the riffs space to breathe and build, quite affecting.
There are some tastes of the space in Dark Medieval Times in which the wash of sound and the repetition of the music works to create that sense of timelessness and eldritch depth which makes Black Metal so powerful. Illumination, the second track enters, immediately diverting the album back towards the Black Metal territory. The album essentially continues as if Satya had never occurred. The music is surprising and unexpected, but that’s necessarily the be-all and end-all of it. The opening trundles through a diverse range of musical ideas, foregrounding melody, rhythm, space and vocals in different ways, but then there’s some slippage at 2:15, and by the arrival of the two and a half minute mark, we’re in entirely new territory with only a tenuous linkage to previous material.
The new material is high quality, the juxtaposition of melody and rhythm is engaging. However, as soon as HN have established a trajectory it is immediately subverted with little entertainment of resolution. This is an interesting artistic choice, but at some points, it disrupts the music’s coherence and at points is a bit too dependent upon brief pauses to provide grounds to radically change the music. After, Illumination the album reclaims a more direction-oriented approach, where transitions become more important in the music, but the music is very much characterised by seeming non-sequitur cuts to different ideas. Alongside the clear references to their Black Metal origins, there is a nod towards a Trivium influence, particularly in the harmonic structures of the initial riffs in Black Heart and about 2:30 in Dead Star Goddess, a juicy breadth of chords with unavoidable forward momentum. Inside is the piece which most fully demonstrates HN’s musical dimensions.
There is a breadth of material present, an oscillation between heavy chugging and that sense of bittersweet chordal harmony we heard in the very outset of this track works to demonstrate stylistic variance, and the transitions between riffs are more considered. Here is the first point at which HN take their foot off the acceleration pedal and change tack. In a style that is very Iron Maiden, the piece pulls back into a twistingly dissonant section before launching into those ascending twin guitars, pulling a touch of dominant harmony into the mix to give the piece that acceleration towards iteration, enacting that chaotic progress outlined in the conceptual framework. At this point, the consideration of the first track is finally matched in electronic form.
As the piece winds down toward corruption, the final riff presses all the right buttons; rolling through driven triplets with an awesome headbanging section flavoured by a melodic chordal structure. We descend back into a primordial wind, and the album is done. Fans of the more melodic and tonally focussed Black Metal will find this album a treat, and those who like more traditional metal may find it interesting if they are willing to be open-minded about the Black Metal side of the project.
Overall, the album is characterful and is full of thoughtful and powerful songwriting and an interesting blend of musical styles.
The only thing which presents an obstacle for me is the jumping between radically different ideas at points that serves not so much as surprising or engaging but quickly chokes down ideas before they have a chance to develop.
Release Year: 2015
Label: self-released
Category: EP
Country: Australia
Reviewed by Duncan Therkildsen Jones
