Review Summary: A pretty solid first effort
I received a digital promo copy of Thysia’s debut album
Islands In Cosmic Darkness in my email inbox unbidden several months ago. Knowing nothing of the band (after all, they are an underground act without a previous record to their name), I was immediately intrigued by a few things mentioned in the promotional blurb. First, Thysia is a four-piece, with the members being also represented in a wide range of bands across the Italian metal scene (including notably, to my taste, both Messa and Assumption). Second, Thysia’s stated list of influences included several groups from the Hellenic black metal scene (Rotting Christ and Varathron, specifically) and from more the distant depths of black metal’s past (a la Celtic Frost and Mayhem). Perhaps not the most original artists to cite, but hey, sounded promising to me, and I took the promo up on its offer and dived in.
Ultimately, my take on what I found is rather nuanced. The album’s bookends are very strong. Opener “Psallo” feels like a throwback to the early 90’s Norwegian scene, albeit with a bit better production. It also serves as the first notice of vocalist Fenrir’s rather unhinged (in a good way) screaming, which permeates throughout. Meanwhile, the closer and title track excels with a doomy approach, one that also finds favor at various moments earlier in the tracklist. The meat of the album is a bit more of a mixed bag. “Scorched Bronze Earth” is mostly a success, built on melody and almost-bouncy guitar work, but later tracks like “Moira Krataia” and “Spiritual Desert” do overstay their welcome, with the latter eventually settling into a somewhat uninteresting and plodding mid-tempo groove.
All told,
Islands In Cosmic Darkness largely delivers on its premise and proves to be a decent debut album with some clear highlights. Its most notable flaw (besides some scattered inconsistency), is that Thysia seem to have not quite found their primary direction yet. On this record, there are some moments which skew towards rawer trve Norwegian stylings, others leaning into a melodic and heavy metal-esque Hellenic sound, and still more which approach blackened doom. The band’s take on all three courses is competent, but a little more focus would’ve paid dividends, particularly since this is a relatively trim effort (around forty minutes). Even if the music doesn’t quite live up to a distinctly badass album cover and title combination,
Islands Of Cosmic Darkness is a capable start and I’d expect that a future second effort will achieve more coherence and be all the better for it.
