Staying on a European stoner-rock tip, Ryte appear to dwell somewhere in the vicinity of Vienna, and, though there are a few moments on their self-titled LP which find them stretching out into more atmospheric realms as the fog of feedback ebbs and flows between chords, for the most part they’re keeping it simple here. Which is to say, Ryte deal in riffs. Also solos, plenty of solos. But mainly riffs. Sweet riffs, crushing riffs, comfortingly familiar riffs, cool, tricky riffs, searing, melodic riffs - riffs atop riffs, and verily, these are GOOD riffs. And, to some extent, that’s all that needs to be said here really. Ryte’s riffs, meet the ears of rock fans. You guys are gonna get along great, I just know it!

Fifty word reviews just ain’t the way we roll around here however, so let’s dig deeper. Keeping things about 90% instrumental, Ryte open the first of four extended cuts on their LP with a dense swirl of wah n’ delay-blasted, overdubbed guitar tendrils, sounding not unlike the kind of eternal rockist nirvana envisioned by Mike Vest in his more recent projects, before things eventually thicken up into a meatier, low-end groove which sounds quite a lot like Sleep - a comparison which remains in play across much of the subsequent half hour, particularly coming to the fore during the rare moments in which vocals intrude upon proceedings.

As anyone who has ever detuned an E string in an unventilated room will tell you however, sounding quite a lot like Sleep is easier said than done, and Ryte celebrate their overwhelming success in the doing department by overlaying their riffery with further sick, self-indulgent lead shredding. Also, more riffs. Sweet!

‘Raging Mammoth’! ‘Shaking Pyramid’! Yes, these are the kind of things pieces of music like this should be called, and I commend artist Sandra Havik for her valiant attempts to literally illustrate these concepts on the album’s front cover. Side 2’s ‘Monolith’ is dutifully depicted on the back cover meanwhile, whilst the accompanying track mixes things up somewhat, heading in a more trad metal direction, bringing in NWBHM-ish harmonic leads and moving from curious, almost jazzy/modal passages early on toward some positively Maiden-esque adventures in mid-tempo, dragon-slaying guitar heroism. Probably the all-round best cut here, it’s pretty damn immense.

And as for fourth/final cut ‘Invaders’… well, I suppose the mammoth and/or pyramid might be seen to be ‘invading’ in some more general sense, but otherwise, no dice, art-wise. Music-wise, it proves a a bit of an outlier too, following up a few minutes of consummate – though by this point standard issue – riffage with a member of the band with a reedy, somewhat theatrical voice taking the mic to holler about “space invadeeeeers”, followed up by some seriously wacky theremin action. Hmm.

So: pretty much a “what’s not to like?” scenario here, I’m thinking. Totally flawless, psyched-out riff-rock / full-on metal with a slight edge of off kilter weirdness? Yes please! Frankly I’d be heading to leave this spinning for a good few weeks even without the off kilter weirdness, but it’s all to the good. Nothing ground-breaking here perhaps, but utter, self-indulgent fun of the highest order, destined to keep me putting one foot in front of the other for weeks to come.

Labels: album reviews, Ryte