Hyaena

I really tried to convince myself many times that "Hyaena" is as phenomenal for Sadist as their previous two cds. Unfortunately (or fortunately), such charms of being a fan and delusions about former high level, because the matter is much different here. It just so happens that "Hyaena" is a wildly uneven lp, less thought-out and mostly not related to the not-so-old virtuosity (more on that in a moment). It does not mean immediately that the Italians recorded a crap or something totally inadequate to the band's name. Absolutely not! Well, it's not as thrilling and cleverly arranged material as "Season In Silence" or "Sadist", and at the same time it does not have as interesting novelties as its predecessors.

As the title suggests, the whole - both in terms of its concept and climate - refers to the symbolism of one of the most ruthless African extortioners, commonly shallow down to the worst kind of scavengers, i.e. hyenas. In that respect...it's also not very interesting! These "ferocious" introductions and twisted, exotic melodies work well, but unfortunately for the band, there isn't as much as the cover and titles might suggest. What's worse, this whole concept ceases to be particularly important when the music (unfortunately often) includes bizarrely kitschy keyboards, Trevor's tired screams/singing attempts or not very progressive riffs - as if taken from a completely different style compared to the rest, oriental part. As confirmation: "Scratching Rocks", "Bouki", "Genital Mask" or "African Devourers", which make you shudder uncomfortably from all these weirdness.

However, the strangest thing is that the lp makes a very positive impression at the very beginning. Well, at the first contact, you can even think that this is a continuation of the level from the predecessors! Well, if the whole cd was in the type of "The Lonely Mountain" (with fabulous technique and excellent guitar-bass solos) and "Pachycrocuta" (here are very good keyboards), I would have no major reservations. This is Sadist in its best form: twisted, with a sensible atmosphere and heaviness, and appropriately progressive. Then there are also interestingly differentiated "Gadavan Kura" (a relaxing instrumental, a bit more like a calmer Cynic songs) and the exotic sounding "Eternal Enemies" (with an excellent use of Indo-Arabic stringed instruments), but both before and after them, the band resolutely too often it blurs in other directions. The conclusion is simple, the content of "Hyaena" could use - simply - less combinatoriality.

Originally on: https://subiektywnymetal.blogspot.com/2021/11/sadist-hyaena-2015.html

The seventh full-length effort from Italian progressive death metallers Sadist continues the bands’ strength of strong, innovative music within the death metal realm. As is the usually the case within their work, the majority of the work here comes from the dynamic and bubbling bass-lines present here, offering a scattering of light, churning rhythms with plenty of complex and utterly challenging arrangements that add a discordant, jazz-like style to the tracks here with their all-over-the-place vibe that does such a spectacular job of playing to the progressive end of the material. Going alongside this technical basswork is the strong, near-avantgarde riff-work that brings along plenty of twisting, challenging riffs that give this one a rather prominent attitude that straddles the two genres by being progressive enough building through avant-garde riffing and patterns. Though this gives the album a strong edge here with all these unique, challenging patterns, it also means that way too much of the film is content to rest on the fence of being just too weird and discordant to really give the fans of traditional death metal much to rest on. There’s plenty of challenging riff-work and complex patterns that often-times comes off with amazing dexterity, but the hollow-ness of the production renders a lot of it with a light, airy feel that’s completely the opposite of the weighty, beefy style of more traditional death metal variants in general but more impactly makes the material seem bland and lifeless as it runs through it’s paces. There’s little thump to the music here, and it’s built to have that here which can wear thin as this goes along. Still, it’s all that really holds this back.

The first half here gives this a solid view of what to expect. Opener ‘The Lonely Mountain’ features a stilted intro before turning into a thumping up-tempo gallop with charging rhythms and dynamic riff-work offering plenty of atmospheric notes alongside the off-kilter arrangements bringing the tight riffing and pounding drumming along through the final half for a strong opener here. ‘Pachycrocuta’ blasts through a series of swirling riffing and thumping drum-work with plenty of stuttering rhythms alongside the complex rhythms leading into the pounding drumming and blaring bass-lines of the solo section keeping the discordant patterns and twisting arrangements along throughout the finale for another enjoyable effort. ‘Bouki’ takes squealing synthesizers and stuttering, start/stop patterns with plenty of blistering rhythms with the discordant, angular patterns twisting through the synthesizers with the rumbling bass-lines making for a swirling series of up-tempo patterns along the charging drumming through the final half for a strong overall highlight. ‘The Devil Riding the Evil Steed’ uses sinister trinkling keyboards eventually leading into the churning riff-work and dynamic drumming against the blaring, bursting bass-lines full of challenging, complex rhythms slowing down for plodding, sluggish solo section and carrying through to the finale for a somewhat enjoyable effort. ‘Scavenger and Thief’ features an assortment of animal noises into an up-tempo series of swirling riffing, ethereal keyboards and stuttering drum-work that drops off for the churning mid-tempo rhythms that continue on through the mid-tempo solo section and churning along into the final half for another enjoyable effort.

The second half plays off as an enjoyable if slightly lesser variation of the first half. Instrumental ‘Gadawan Kura’ offers lush acoustic guitars and plenty of blaring bass-lines as light, plodding tempos weave through the dreamy, melancholic paces before getting up to churning mid-tempo rhythms in the finale that offers a suitable mid-album breather. ‘Eternal Enemies’ uses tight, churning and twisting rhythms swirling through rather up-tempo paces full of dynamic patterns that nicely drop off into a minor atmospheric interlude before turning back into the mid-tempo mixture of swirling patterns and churning rhythms throughout the final half for another strong highlight. ‘African Devourers’ features spacey keyboards over blaring bass-lines and dexterous drumming charging along with the change-over into more technical patterns keeping the buzzing bass-lines in check through the series of churning riffing through the finale for a decent enough track. ‘Scratching Rocks’ features screeching keyboards that turn into a series of discordant riffing with dexterous drumming taking the screeching riff-work with churning rhythmic riffing twisting along through the discordant patterns in the final half for a mostly disappointing and uneven track. Lastly, ‘Genital Mask’ brings in tribal drumming that turns into swirling buzzing bass-lines and stuttering riff-work bringing along plenty of discordant rhythms weaving throughout the extended instrumental buzzing bass-lines with plenty of ethereal rhythms flowing into the finale for another enjoyable effort that ends this on a nice note.

While it does lack a discernable thump that holds it back and might appear too avant-garde for more traditionalists who aren’t that into this kind of technicality and progressive edges, there’s more than enough general talent and wholly enjoyable moments that fans of more adventurous music won’t find a lot to really enjoy here.

I guess some will immediately beg to differ when hearing someone say that Sadist are the most prominent Italian metal act for the past 20 years alongside Eldritch. They took over from Bulldozer, Death SS, Black Hole and the likes in the early-90’s although their vision stretched towards the good, at the time still new, death metal which wasn’t such a common phenomenon on Italian ground at that stage yet. They showed with their excellent debut that they wouldn’t be treading well established territories, but took the lefthand path where innovative acts like early Therion, Disharmonic Orchestra, Phlebotomized, and the Dan Swano projects (Edge of Sanity, Pan.Thy.Monium) belonged. They also managed to avoid the stalemate repetition by sounding different on each subsequent album: the avant-garde, eventful death/thrashing on “Above the Light” was superseded by a lush use of keyboards on “Tribes”; then came “Crust” with its more calculated, dispassionate precise shredding… All the way to “Lego” which was hardly the missing piece from the “lego” with its alternative U-turn from death metal, and arguably the guys’ only not very carefully calculated step.

The very lukewarm, if there ever was one, acceptance of the “Lego” may have been the reason for the lengthy hiatus which was followed by the self-titled effort. Self-titled albums usually hide some underwater stones, but in the Sadists’ case it was a brilliant return to form, a stunning display of technical/progressive death metal wizardry the band wisely shaking off all undesirable musical digressions from the predecessor. Another strong work followed three years later seeing the guys coming on top of the metal scene in their homeland regardless of the healthy competition provided by stalwarts like Illogicist, Coram Lethe, Gory Blister, Infernal Poetry, the psycho-avantgardists Ephel Duath and Psychofagist, etc. And here we are now, facing this “howling hyaena”…

The fear of another puzzle-like failure quickly evaporates into thin air once the listener is reached by the band’s staple precise technical shredding wrapped in deep keyboard undercurrents, spiced by the unexpected spastic jazzy-breaks all this handsomely provided on the encompassing opener "The Lonely Mountain" which also serves a nice balladic outro. "Pachycrocuta" is choppy funkisms accentuated by beautiful, haunting leads and sinister keyboards. "Bouki" is a short twisted technicaller the guitars and the keys duelling throughout. "The Devil Riding The Evil Steed" contains the only more speedy moments on the album the latter later "drowned" by "a sea" of mazey intricate arrangements the middle occupied by an ambient interlude accompanied by a narrative in Arabic.

"Scavenger And Thief" is first-rate puzzling technical death metal with bewildering keyboard crescendos this symbiosis reaching symphonic heights. "Gadawan Kura" is a nice balladic instrumental followed by another exercise in twisted technicality, "Eternal Enemies", the ending being an enchanting Oriental motif taken straight from the Melechesh textbooks. "African Devourers" is an atmospheric cut the keyboards leading the show, and "Scratching Rocks" goes further down the rabbit hole with a portion of oblivious operatic landscapes. The closing "Genital Mask" begs to differ, though, a vortex-like concoction of steely shreds and again more quiet lead-driven passages the latter leading the way out of this mesmerizing listening experience.

The band fans will readily embrace this new chapter from the Sadists' repertoire whereas the more hardcore death metal audience will again stand on the side listening in perplexity to this effort which some may find too farfetched to call death metal at times. The almost complete lack of speed is nothing new, as a matter of fact, and the guys will hardly start shredding with the speed of, or even "above", light since their vision hardly requires such a delivery. To these ears the band's output has always been the more preferred, more dynamic alternative to the fusion wave started by Cynic's 'Focus", Atheist's 'Elements" and Pestilence's "Spheres". The approach never gets too sleepy and entirely abstract, and just when one is about to drift comes a faster-paced technical section to rudely awaken him and put him back on track. The use of keyboards is never overdone, like some biased comments in the media have pointed out, and in this album in particular their role is guiding rather than overpowering which has actually been the case in almost any other work of theirs excluding "Tribes".

Technical/progressive death metal’s palette is vast and immeasurable so talented musicians can tap into those not very charted fields, and can continue to experiment without necessarily altering their style beyond recognition. Right now Sadist are perhaps one of the better examples of how this can be done without turning one into the “laughing stock” of the movement, or making it sound like an entirely new outfit. They don’t churn albums hurriedly on a year-by-year basis so it’s not very likely that they would mess it up with another alien to their discography oddity. Even if they do eventually, I strongly suggest beautiful “howling hyaenas” installed in the background again: this would by all means alleviate the pain from the deviation, and would make “the beasts” exposed to it less prone to mindless Sadistic violence.