Artist: Ryte
Album: Ryte
Genre: Psychedelic Doom
Country: Austria
Release Date: 17th of January 2020
Released via Heavy Psych Sounds
Cover Artwork © Heavy Psych Sounds, 2020
At the beginning of this year, Austrian four-man combo Ryte release their first debut album; four songs and 37 minutes of Psychedelic Doom/Stoner Rock, don’t let us talk too much but jump right into the review.
The band starts off smoothly but with power in their first song “Raging Mammoth”. The first part of the song is a long and typical start for the genre, but it gets more playful later on. You can hear how the four band members harmonize together, you can clearly identify all instruments in the sound, the mixing is very good and clear, a big plus. The song grows faster and harder step by step, until they are doing some fresh sound for the final part of the song. I must commit, a nice and great beginning for an album. The second song “Shaking Pyramid” begins kind of similar to the first song, but later on chooses a different path – it’s funkier, but with clear Psychedelic and Stoner elements. A lot of sounds in this song are sort of typical elements that you hear from other Psychedelic releases.It always feels quite reminiscent but Ryte put a lot of effort into dressing this sounds in new clothes. And again, like the first song, they step on the breaks, slow down their tempo, add interesting, dirty and typical vocals, only to accelerate towards the last part of “Shaking Pyramid”. Overall, it is possible to hear a lot of variations of the similar riffs in this song, both guitars a moved a little away from that, coming back, support the other guitar or shine alone.
“Monolith” breaks with the rules of the both of the first songs. It kicks off harder right from the start, stomping to gliding in Psychedelic sound with a flavour of a Jazz Bar. The drums are more prominent against the three other instruments. High riffs, clearly Psychedelic, a reminder of old 4:3 Rock videos are emerging in my inner eye… and the 10 minutes finish quite fast, sad! Their last song “Invaders” begins very monotonously, which accelerates pretty quickly. And again, the nice dirty vocals from “Shaking Pyramid” reenter the ear, spartanic and Psychedelic. The bass leads the other instruments and shows the way during these eight minutes, until the rest of the instruments emancipate and kick in again for the listener – until the song pulls out just as it began 36 minutes before.
Overall, I must say it’s a good album with some flaws. It’s nothing new, some parts remind you of other songs and bands, but Ryte is doing it with their personal style. This band is playing nicely with all the old elements we know from songs and bands from the last fifty years, which is, of course, nice, but nothing that impressed me much. The technical side is – in my opinion – very good, where other bands coming from the genre try to sound dirtier and “old” in a way that it sounds like the vinyl has some scratched parts, Ryte showcase clear Psychedelic sounds. Every fan of the genre should listen into this album, the odds are not too bad that one of the four songs could be a new part of your everyday playlist.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
7 / 10
As usual, we added the favorite track(s) to our Transcended Review Playlist 2020.
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