Pyreship – Light is a Barrier

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From their Bandcamp page, “Houston Sludge thugs PYRESHIP expertly blend Post Metal and Doom with a raft of 90's Slowcore and Noise Rock influences. Comprised of four road-hardened musicians, their songs are reflective of their formative environment - stripped down, unpretentious, and resilient. Live, the music is meant to be both heard and felt.” The album contains five tracks.

“Broken Spire” leads off the album. Eerie spoken words open the song with a distorted voice. From there, smooth but dark tones ease in, with clean vocals and backing harsh vocals. The vocals turn to shouts and some melody slips in. “Anathema” begins with quite clean guitar and a slow drumbeat. The tones retreat to solemn offerings as the guitars begin to build. Vocal shouts enter again and the guitars and drums thud away with dark power, building to a crescendo of crashing cymbals. “Half Light” opens with a bit of melody, but it is soon dashed by harsh, angry vocals. The slow grind continues with some dissonance in the guitars. An extended instrumental passage takes the song to completion.

“Forest of Spears” begins with heavy drum thuds, leading to aggressive and chunky guitar notes that pummel the ground over and over. A little guitar harmony sneaks in among the weighted accents of the guitars and drums. “Highborn” closes the album. More heavy guitar and drum strikes combine with shouted vocals, and clean female vocals in the background, bringing a glimmer of melody to the song. Following a brief pause, the desolate sound continues. The guitars build a little melody in an otherwise repetitive passage that runs clean through the end. I like the way this song ends.

Shouted vocals are probably my least favorite when it comes to styles but they work here and quite well. The music has a dreadful sound for the most part. Through six tracks of heavy, dissonant music, I think the listener can tell pretty easily the message that the band is trying to get across. The hard part is translating the album to a live performance, but if you close your eyes and imagine, the emotional quality of the music comes through.

Songwriting: 8
Musicianship: 7
Memorability: 8
Production: 8

Purchase Link (Coming soon):

https://pyreship.bandcamp.com/