EP REVIEW: Dryad – The Silurian Age

My review of the new EP from US Extreme Metal band DRYAD. Something my friends over at Metal Swarm have posted a lot about. The name of the EP itself caught my attention as it instantly made me thing of the Jon Pertwee era Doctor Who serial “The Silurians”. Anyway here are my thoughts.

1. Orcrist opens with harsh Black Metal noise, the guitars create a wall of ambience and the vocals sound incredibly evil. The drums are nice and upbeat giving the song a real punch. The production is very raw but that almost gives this song Black Metal nostalgia points. The songwriting is simple but very effective and this first track was a really good start.
2. Hellbender follows with a more Black ‘n’ Roll paced style, extremely harsh vocals and cool riffs. I preferred the first track but this one was also pretty cool and definitely more catchy. The atmosphere becomes stronger and has a really nice cold feeling to it with great structure and chord progression choices. There is something here very reminiscent of early Darkthrone.
3. Invoked kicks the atmosphere straight back in with much more traditional drumming and riffs used. It sounds really dark and bleak which is something I will never tire of in Black Metal. The melancholy of the instruments topped with the attack of the vocals creates a beautiful contradicting soundscape and is really original in tone with it being both sombre and malicious.
4. The Silurian Age has a more depressive intro but then is followed up with more fast-tempo parts still drenched in melancholia and anguish. It sounds really great and the raw production actually does it favours in my opinion.
5. Depths finishes the album with some very dark and well played piano which sounds really haunting. It’s a really interesting and nice way to finish the EP off.

To summarise, we get 5 tracks of very raw, well written and atmospheric Black Metal. It may not have a very polished production but it does have awesome songwriting and killer vocals too. -7.5/10