Album Review: Zorya – Mystic Lament (Self Released)

Slovenian atmospheric/post black metal/blackgaze band, Zorya released their debut full-length album, ‘Mystic Lament’ on June 10th. The album is a life story, and features the two tracks from the Escapism EP, and five new tracks.

The simplest and most effective way to sum up Mystic Lament is to call it the epitome of melancholy. It is all about emotion, the emotion of one’s life and how it plays out. That is what Zorya has aimed for here and it’s realised through a selection of tracks that drip with sadness.

Although not immediately clear based off Rise, the opening track, Zorya does sit within the twisted and gnarled black metal genre. It’s not clear because it is extremely melodic and features clean and clear vocals for most of its runtime. The important word there being ‘most,’ as with around a minute left, it erupts and the blackness pours in.

It’s a similar thing with Us, except the melody is so much lighter and the harshness is so much darker.

With Autumn, Zorya sound in pain, the vocal howls in particular, really make things colder and harsher. However, the instrumental section, is clean and melodic. It makes for a drawn-out slice of suffering that oozes atmosphere and holds an underlying prettiness.

Then there is IWTFL and Avoidance. The former is around three minutes of misery with a violin becoming quite prominent. Whereas the latter really shows off that post-black and blackgaze sound that Zorya excels at.

Amplifying the sense of soul ache that has permeated everything so far, Pain II is haunting and heavy in equal parts. A track the builds and builds to a glorious crescendo, delivering heartfelt melody, deep and moving atmosphere and eye-watering brutal black metal parts. Finally, it’s Sepulchre of Love and Zorya at their most poignant sounding, the contrast between light female vocals and savage male vocals is extremely strong here.

Zorya continues to impress here. Mystic Lament is a must listen for fans of beautiful misery and blackened fury.

Zorya – Mystic Lament Track Listing:

1. Rise
2. Us
3. Autumn
4. IWTFL
5. Avoidance
6. Pain II
7. Sepulchre Of Love

Links

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