Pyres — Yun (Hypaethral)
Photo by Sam Carcasole
Should sludge metal be hummable? Want some melody mixed in with the magma? Bands have asked similar questions about tempering sludge’s usually relentless ugliness — see especially YOB’s incendiary Our Raw Heart (2018). But Mike Scheidt, YOB’s frontman and creative force, is a past master of metal textures, and the singular source for that record’s surfeit of sentiment is intrinsic to Scheidt’s very body. Pyres, on the other hand, is a Toronto band offering here its second LP in 13 or so years of infrequent activity. As no less an authority than Japhy Ryder (and Dogberry, too) has told us, “Comparisons are odious.” But Pyres is swinging for the fences on Yun, urging listeners to open up to big riffs and even bigger feels. And the opening strains of the LP’s longest cut “A Depth Charge in a Dead Sea” closely evoke YOB’s “Beauty in Falling Leaves.” It’s provoking, at the very least. But is there substance beyond the provocation?















