Night/Layr - Split (Eleventh Key)

Hailing from South Central Pennsylvania, both Night and Layr create powerful, engaging music the stems from a black metal base, but adds other elements that twist it into something else. Though their approaches are quite different, the two bands fit well together, allowing for a diverse, but coherent split release.

Night have certainly grown since their 2012 debut full-length, especially with the addition of a live drummer. The two instrumentals presented here have a much more raw quality about them than previous efforts, though the live drums have added an entirely new dynamic to their music. “The Great Storm” nods to the progressive black metal of groups like Poland’s Furia, while “The Flood” plants the quartet firmly in their black post-rock mode by using instruments to graphically tell a story. On the other hand, the solo project Layr delivers three tracks of bone-crushing black doom full of massive, fuzzy bass, demonic vocals and eerie frequencies, like Man Is the Bastard crossed with Monarch with all knobs turned to maximum intensity. It’s the sound of a negative entity howling at the world from the cavernous pit to which it was banished thousands of years ago.

Not confined by the limitations set by purists, these artists push the boundaries of black metal and make it a much richer genre in doing so. The days when Norway reigned are over. It’s time for someone else to take the reigns of the underground. Perhaps Night and Layr are just those visionaries.