Hiram

See The Thing Within The Thing

Written by: BV on 23/06/2013 23:11:42

Hiram is a doom/progressive metal outfit from Sheffield, England that has recently released the enormously gloomy album “See The Thing Within The Thing”. Throughout the six tracks the listener is taken through soundscapes of impending doom, foreboding gloom and mighty riffing in general. The moods are definitely to the darker side and it does indeed help to listen to it in a darkened room.

As the first note of “See The Thing” is played, one tends to get a feeling of foreboding rushing through the head. The paranoia infused gloomy sounds are vastly powerful and the minimalist approach to actual melody works great in setting the mood, whilst never actually developing into a song per se. Songs however will soon follow as we progress into “Winner Dies Last (Aspiration)”, a track that has a ‘progressive’ build-up to it, where the soundscape starts off minimalistic only to become fully fledged and quite heavy sounding just before reaching the obligatory climax.

Indeed, the heaviness is quite delicious on this release and the guitar work is, if anything, relatively interesting. Sadly however, the vocal work needs quite a bit of polishing to my ears. Tormented howls, saddened screams and ‘raw’ yells are ridiculously cool if there is a proper force of nature behind them. If not, then they come off as anguished attempts at conveying powerful emotions and, to some, become quite agitating. Whilst never being poorly finished off, they do still need work. The instrumental passages however, are quite exhilarating throughout the entire 9 minutes or so.

Such good things cannot be said for “Respiration (Calm And Deep)” however, as the sounds are not exactly brand new, nor particularly interesting at this point on the album. As all six tracks have quite extensive run times it is quite limited how fascinating the sounds can continue to be. On this track for example, there is relatively little going on instrumentally and the slow tempo soon becomes a killer of interest, rather than a killer track. Oddly enough though, the vocals are quite good on this track – this could be due to the ‘softer’ nature and the slower tempo of the track.

So while Hiram certainly started out interesting, they soon evolved to become a quite dull, yet not horrifying listening experience. If one is into this particular sort of thing it might be rated better, but I can’t really deem it more than slightly above average at best.

Download: See The Thing, Winner Dies Last (Aspiration)
For The Fans Of: Diablo Strange, Dyscordia, Empire Drowns
Listen: facebook.com

Release Date 08.03.2013
Self-released


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