Hymn - Breach Us Review ⚡️ - More Fuzz Stoner Rock Blog

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How the hell do you meditate on this gargantuan riff metal?!?!

From my neighboring country, Norway comes this sludgy doom beast that is Hymn!
Breach Us is my first experience with them and I got curious because:
1, They are Norwegian!
2, I rarely find sludge that keeps my interest!
3, It’s a duo on guitars & drums and there’s been a surge of spectacular duos in the last years!

Bands like Mantar, Haggard Cat, and Telekinetic Yeti to name a few have shown that you don’t need 3 or 4 band members to make some of the heaviest & intense music out there!

So crank your speakers up and prepare for some heavy shit!

How is the sound?

This album you could divide in two parts for each side of a vinyl record.
Side A relies heavily on crushing sludge and aggressive vocals while Side B is focusing more on the doom side with guest vocals and a reminiscence of Mariner by Cult of Luna.

Starting with Breach Us you’re greeted with a heavy guitar sound with medium fuzziness and the vocals reminding me of the way Cult of Luna’s singer screams, it has that similar screamed hardcore shout which sits between anger and melancholy.
The drums pound away with heft and precise patterns which do more than supporting the sound with a beat.
One of the most noteworthy brief parts here is after the 3-minute mark, back and forth the singer is on top of a riff, and right after comes a really fat guitar riff, so be ready to dust off your air-guitar in advance!

If you felt like Breach Us was heavy, be ready for Exit Through Fire!
I think the only way to get more heavy & aggressive than this is to be the band Lord Mantis!
Something which makes this one stand out is the main riffs change between “chugga” bits and black metal influences, one helluva intense song before it slows down toward the end for a calming passage.

Now we’re getting to Side B and first out is Crimson, gone is the aggression and here we get more doom and a guest singer from the Swedish sludge/doom band Kongh who add some clean vocals with more of an epic feel.
Halfway through there’s a calmer passage before they end the track heavier and with the usual vocals.

Last out is the 14 minute Can I Carry You and this is where I feel the most similarities of Cult of Luna.
It starts slow & heavy and with guest vocals by the Norwegian artist Guro Moe and her vocals are pretty similar to Julie Christmas who sang on the Mariner album.
4 minutes in the tempo is gaining and getting heavier while leaning on that doomy side before a tremolo picking takes over as the main riffage throughout the last intense minutes of this gargantuan track!

Why is this album worth listening to?

It’s simply a fantastic album filled with heavy as hell riffage and drumming!
The guest vocals add diversity by being completely different from the singer of Hymn!