Syrach - A Dark Burial

November 3, 2009

Reviewer: Matt

A Dark Burial is a great new death doom album from Norway’s Syrach.  Their third album, A Dark Burial keeps alive the tradition of early British death doom and updates the sound with a thick, modern production.

Syrach aren’t breaking any new ground here, but A Dark Burial is a fairly welcome addition to the style, which has declined sharply in quality over the past decade and a half as its progenitors (Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride) fell into utter redundancy.  Thankfully, Syrach have strong songwriting skills, and their emphasis on traditional heavy metal elements makes for quite the headbanger.

Imagine the Heaven and Hell album with powerful death metal vocals and you get a pretty good idea of what’s on tap here.  Syrach are particularly adept at driving the songs forward with surprisingly fluid transitions between riffs and display a sharply honed ability to compose memorable hooks.  The focus is on heaviness and catchiness, a welcome approach in today’s scene oversaturated with dull and gloomy funeral doom bands.   The album is replete with great lead guitar work that lends a strong emotive quality to the otherwise overwhelmingly crushing riffs.

Check out Syrach’s new album if you’re in the mood for a great death doom album that you’ll be replaying in your head after only your first listen.  Recommended for fans of traditional metal and modern doom metal alike, A Dark Burial is a highly enjoyable entry in the genre and one of the best doom metal albums I’ve heard this year.

Release Date: July 22nd, 2009
Label:  Napalm Records

TRACK LISTING

1.  Curse The Souls
2.  The River's Rage
3.  A Dark Burial
4.  A Mourners Kiss
5  .In Darkness I Sigh
6.  Ouroboros

Total playing time:  45:53

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