Hyatari
They Will Surface
6.2
I vaguely remember being somewhat impressed with this West Virginia drone/doom band on their 2005 debut, The Light Carriers, however, I could not have been that enamored as I don’t own that CD and I had to go out and do a little research to refresh my memory on their sound.
Largely instrumental in delivery, this trio delivers a sound that lies somewhere between Pelican and Earth in that they mix dense, suffocating, reverb soaked droning riffs with moments of post rock introspection and ambience. Throw in structures that share more with doom that drone and Hyatari are little different from your typical drone band. What also sets Hyatari apart from most drone bands is that they tend to let the drone element breathe a bit and fluctuate, rather than beat a riff to death for 10-minutes. Sure, there is some repetition and slow, languid builds that don’t really peak, but on the whole, They Will Surface has a little more appeal than your typical drone band.
The 6 songs range from 7 to 15 minutes and never outlast their stay and even the more droning moments manage to be varied and contain actual riffs (“Abyssal Plain”) rather than be 3 note forays into exhaustion. The ‘riffs’ are delivered with a crushing, down tuned heft that’s semi distorted, and has a little bit of Halo in their tone, but not quite as grating or un-nerving-“Eight Feet of Ash” being particularly weighty. Some programming litters the tracks (“Mountain Lit with Fire”), but it’s never dominant or distracting. Overall, the pace is pretty lethargic and the band rarely goes past a slight crawl (“Prolonged Exposure”), even though the nice acoustic/atmospheric moments break off the sloth like gait nicely and the album ends with the suitably relaxing closure of “By The Throne.”
Still though for me, music like this is like the massage without the happy ending, there’s just no real climax despite the enjoyment of the album and I’m left sorta wanting more, vocally and musically. But that’s my general ambivalence towards instrumental music rather than the quality of Hyatari’s music. I felt the same way about the recent Scale the Summit release- I just need vocals and some sort of payback in music.
