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While many bands feel the need to overcomplicate post-metal, German trio RÝR strip it back to its base elements with their thunderous mix of intricate textures and gloomy atmospheres. Building on their previous work’s bleak and crushing ambience, the Berlin three-piece use their latest album Dislodged to prove that less can be more.
While similarly oppressive sounding bands such as CULT OF LUNA or AMENRA create their sounds with close to twice as many instruments, RÝR keep things surprisingly simple, carefully crafting their doom inspired ambience from just a single guitar, bass and drum kit. Throughout the album RÝR showcase what can be done with such a straightforward setup, tracks such as opener Flung push the guitar lines into the upper register for some more intricate, ambient passages, forcing the bass to accommodate with thumping midrange grooves. Rather than allowing their lean lineup to create holes in their sound RÝR use the tools at hand to form a tight-knit wall of riffs.
RÝR’s stripped back approach can be a bit of a double edged sword at times, keeping their instrumentation simple requires the trio’s songwriting to do all the heavy lifting and leaves little room for repetition or laziness. While there are certainly stand out passages throughout Dislodged, such as the slowed down ambient groove on Winded or the dramatic closing crescendo on Foiled, there’s also an eerie sense of déjà vu with many of the chugging riffs blending into each other. While these moments do provide some respite from the constant grinding distortion there’s definitely room for a little more innovation here.
The slower feel and extended runtimes on Dislodged give RÝR plenty of room to stretch out their doom inspired ambience while folding in some more intricate post-metal moments. The title track Dislodged is full of subtle back and forths between the soaring guitar and thunderous grooving bass, joined by precise drum beats which waver between ferocious Dave Lombardo style double kick fury and delicate percussion backing the quieter moments. With tracks reaching the nine minute mark, RÝR remain impressively quick to react when they need to shake things up without pulling the listener out of their immersive haze of distorted atmosphere.
Closing track Foiled stands out as particularly ambitious for a band who seem to pride themselves on their barebones approach to songwriting. Building up dense layers of post-metal atmosphere seems straightforward when you’re CULT OF LUNA and have multiple guitarists, vocalists and percussionists, creating the same crescendo effect across a nine minute track with just an instrumental trio would be a daunting task to most bands but RÝR take it in their stride, starting from a haunting lone guitar line and evolving until all three instruments are winding and contorting into an impenetrable mountain of overdriven noise. RÝR come into their own when they embrace their limitations, where other bands would add a keyboard or second guitar to fill out their sound RÝR explore the entire breadth of their instruments’ potential.
Providing dense atmospheres and hefty riffs, Berlin’s RÝR stand out from the crowd by doing less with more, embracing their place as a trio in a genre overwhelmed with unwieldy behemoths. While Dislodged isn’t the most expansive or inventive post-metal album out there RÝR clearly demonstrate their ability to punch well above their weight.
Rating: 6/10
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Dislodged is out now via Moment of Collapse.
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The post ALBUM REVIEW: Dislodged – RÝR appeared first on Distorted Sound Magazine.
