The Danish trio Dying Hydra named their forthcoming second album Strange and Beautiful Things — tangible proof that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, because the band’s rendering of atmospheric sludge metal on the record is capable of reaching harrowing depths of ugliness and devastating heaviness. You’ll discover what we mean when you see and hear the video we’re premiering today for an album track named “Grasping Stone“.
photo by Miriam Zakarina, Zakarina Visuals
Seen through a hallucinatory lens, the video splices together footage of the band performing the song in a practice space along with a changing array of frightening and even monstrous images, some with a supernatural source.
All of which is fitting, because the song itself is hallucinatory, frightening, monstrous, and supernatural.
In this song Tejs Kyhl gives the tom-drums a good workout behind the kit, both in the track’s riveting introductory phase and again later, creating a rumbling avalanche of sound (some might also call it “tribal”). When he’s not doing that, he’s cracking the snare like a whip or pairing up with lo-frequency notes to slug listeners in the kidneys.
Around that rhythmic propulsion the guitars, both fuzzed with gouging distortion and piercing with knife-like clarity, create dragging and clawing sensations that are ominous and cold, but also generate sounds that are brazen and blaring, or weirdly quivering and wailing. (FYI, this band doesn’t use a bass.)
The vocals also bring spine-tingling and skin-chilling variety to the proceedings, ranging from ravenous, belly-deep growls to rabid roars and enraged howls. Near the end, while the music is slugging and just before it devolves into a collage of nightmarish electronics, the vocals change again, singing and soaring with doom extravagance.
As the band themselves say about this song: “Behold and brace yourself for the sounds of the deep, the track ‘Grasping Stone‘ will swallow you whole and pull you into the universe of Dying Hydra.”
DYING HYDRA is:
Lars Pontoppidan (guitar / vocals)
Patrick Fragtrup (guitar / vocals)
Tejs Kyhl (drums)
With respect to the new album’s lyrical themes, we’ll share this info from Black Grain Records, which will release it on November 1st:
DYING HYDRA‘s upcoming sophomore studio album Strange and Beautiful Things revolves around our great oceans, with lyrics touching subjects such as the human impact on the environment, the incredible lifeforms, and the overwhelming size of the abyss. All tracks deeply reflect these aspects not only lyrically–but also musically inform of crushingly heavy, dynamic and atmospheric sludge metal compositions.
Strange and Beautiful Things was recorded and mixed by Lasse Ballade (Ballade Studios), and it was mastered by the masterful Brad Boatright at Audiosiege. The cover art is the work of Kacper Gilka. Additional artwork, graphics, and layout were done by Diogo Soares, Soares Artwork & Gargantula Creations.
The album will be coming out on November 1st via Black Grain Records, and for physical formats in collaboration with the following distributors: minoRobscuR, Virkelighedsfjern, Vinyl Trolden and Quebranta Records.
PRE-ORDER:
https://dyinghydra.bandcamp.com/album/strange-and-beautiful-things
FOR MORE INFO:
https://www.facebook.com/dyinghydra
https://www.instagram.com/dyinghydraband
https://dyinghydra.bandcamp.com