Comes in a Standard CD case with black tray, an 8 pages booklet and a picture printed CD
Kyy and their second album "Apotheosis : The Light of All Lights". Well, the new work of this black metal horde from Finland can even surprise you. Their debut "Beyond Flesh - Beyond Matter - Beyond Death" was released seven years ago, a lot has changed since then, but you will still recognize the Kyy style and quality. They still play very dynamic black metal, but now it can hardly be described as "toe-tapping": the music has become more colorific in structure, it has acquired rich riffage, not to mention that there are lots of tempo changes in their pieces now. In addition, melodism constantly duels with the black metal roughness – this little provocation sounds quite interesting in Kyy's interpretation. Definitely, the transitional split with Djevelkult and Nihil Kaos "Kult of Kaos Serpent" (2018) determined the direction of the band's development.
Impaled Nazarene influences, which used to be dominant previously, still make themselves felt, but now in particular cases only, mainly during a blasting rampage, especially when the strained screamy vocals run things: "Initiation into the Sinister Mysteries", "Satan Incarnate", "The Passion of Gestas", "Sadomasochistic Euphoria", "Betray". Come to think of it, analyzing "Apotheosis", we can confidently diagnose "modernization": Kyy's music is now dominated by modern black metal tendencies. That's right, Watain. Despite the band's best efforts in the past, comparisons with Watain were hardly in the cards before – unless with an excess of imagination.
Perhaps, Kyy even overdid it a little, wanting to make their music more sophisticated to match current requirements: in particular, "Satan Incarnate" is a little difficult to listen to – diverse passages follow one after another so much so that there is even a feeling of the absence of some central focus in the song's texture. Luckily for Kyy, "Satan Incarnate" is more of an exception on "Apotheosis".
While old school black metal reigns supreme at a slow tempo in most cases, this is quite unexpected, by the way. The first half of the album strongly demonstrates this: the final part of "Initiation into the Sinister Mysteries", the second half of "Satan Incarnate", the first half of "Festering Wounds", and especially the whole "The Passion of Gestas", a slow and groovy piece, in which you can clearly hear the riff in the spirit of Celtic Frost. This is the most impressive song on "Apotheosis".
Part of the band's schtick taken from the past and reinforced on "Apotheosis" is the extremely varied vocals, which adapt on the fly to new riffs and, accordingly, adopt a new style. Vocalist G.K. demonstrates this already in the first song "Initiation into the Sinister Mysteries": this is "shamanic" throat singing (as an introduction), singing with a clear voice, high pitched shrieking vocals, strained "sepulchral" Dagon-like vocals, and even (almost) falsetto (not very fine, however). Everything happens according to the modern black metal algorithm "lots of riffs / lots of vocals."
And although at the beginning of "Satan Incarnate" we hear some almost typical death metal growling, "Apotheosis" is dominated by vocal techniques from modern black metal on the whole, for example, "Festering Wounds" opens with "propagandistic" declaiming (it definitely can't be called singing) in the manner of Behemoth. Perhaps G.K. sometimes abuses this technique: the guitars are inaudible at the beginning of "The Passion of Gestas" because of it, and due to such vocals on "Sorathian Pathways" you get the impression that riffs just create a heavy background but not music at all.
Looks like G.K. overwhelmed with emotions and he considers it his duty to constantly let off steam. Partly because of his manner, it becomes sometimes difficult to follow the progress of the song. Moreover, sometimes an almost unending vocal line, this continuous stream of words does not even allow the guitars to have their say. "Festering Wounds" is exemplary in this sense: seriously, you can't hear the music because of the screaming. "Sorathian Pathways" is also marked by the dominance of the vocal part. In this sense, by the way, "Apotheosis" is a classic case when the message is more important than the music.
The above-mentioned "The Passion of Gestas" benefits a lot, also because it is not burdened with this sin (with the exception of the mentioned beginning), we can painlessly listen to the music. "Betray (The Kiss of Judas & The Hand of Longinus)" is extremely successful in this sense as well, we hear at the beginning long atmospheric tremolo picking and then a solemn passage with anthemic singing: the vocals and guitar share the effort evenly. Using these two compositions as an example, we can say that now Kyy's music has an atmosphere that they so lacked before – "Beyond Flesh - Beyond Matter - Beyond Death" was mainly some concert groove for those who like to sing along with the band.
In this regard, by the way, "Drakon Pankreator" stands out among the pieces of the new album – perhaps this is the only song in which the punky quality that is generally characteristic of Finnish black metal makes itself felt. An unconcealed palm muted rhythm part is also a component of this song, oddly enough, it switches to (again) solemn anthemic singing. However, the song is constructed harmoniously, which once again indicates qualitative changes in Kyy's music.
Summary. It is unlikely that Kyy have fully developed their own style. Nevertheless, they succeeded significantly better in this task. Undoubtedly, this work deserves your attention.
Sample: youtube.com/watch?v=jYbbatXs1wI
