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TRACK LISTING:
1. Deafening
2. Rewire, Rebuild
3. Yet We Still Fight
4. The Shackles of Chronitus
5. Blood Over Chrome
6. Grain of Sand
7. Rhizome Rider
8. The Whole of Time
REVIEW: Fans of traditional Heavy Metal are in for an ambitious ride with Cybergenesis, the 4th studio album by Italian Metallers HyperioN. The album features 8 epic, multi-faceted tracks perfect for livening up any lackluster or mundane occasion. This is Metal in f*cking technicolor, baby. We’re talking cybernetic war cries and melodic infernos.
If Power Metal had a digital uprising, it would sound like Cybergenesis.
Power Metal isn’t really my flavor, to be honest – but I didn’t hate listening to this.
This is the 4th album since the band’s inception in 2015.
Speed & raw power of traditional Heavy Metal and a dash of Thrash flesh out the album, with triumphant, heroic vocals and ever-escalating guitar work.
The themes explored include technology, rebellion, and a healthy dash of existentialism.
It’s epic and tastefully-paced, each song pouring cleanly into the next.
Even if Power Metal usually makes me cringe a little, this album is competent, focused, and far easier to sit with than a lot of stuff I’ve heard from their genrefellows.
No shade thrown…
I can’t shit on Cybergenesis.
I really can’t.
It’s well-made for its category… Power Metal has never been a genre I approach without a certain amount of side-eye.
Its excesses are well-documented: grandiosity giving way to camp, sci-fi concepts that flirt with self-parody, and choruses designed less for emotional resonance than for communal fist-pumping.
Cybergenesis, the latest release from Italy’s HyperioN, doesn’t entirely escape these parameters — but to its credit, it isn’t overrun with them either.
I might not be the target audience, but I can still tell when a lot of love was put into something.
Often, the protagonists are fighting dragons or supernatural forces in Power Metal.
This time it’s aliens. I’ll admit that piqued my interest! I found myself wanting to know what came next for the hero of the story.
The tale the album is telling is grand yet entirely human – in some unspecified time in the future, mankind is waging war for survival against hostile extraterrestrials after a bold space expedition goes terribly awry, and things aren’t looking good for the human explorers. They have awakened a race of alien entities called the Choir, an ancient, bloodthirsty, hivemind force…
It’s up to an enigmatic hero named the Rhizome Rider now. He emerges from the ruin to challenge the otherworldly tyrants, leading a rebellion against the Choir at great cost to himself.
The unfolding space drama will appeal to watchers of Neon Genesis Evangelion, Star Trek and Ghost in the Shell – as well as listeners of HELLOWEEN, early METAL CHURCH and ANNIHILATOR.
The album’s artwork is gawk-worthy and ominously ethereal, painted by hand on canvas by artist Ryan. T. Hancock.
ALBUM RATING: 4/5
RECOMMENDED FOR THOSE WHO ENJOY: QUEENSRYCHE, JUDAS PRIEST, HELLOWEEN, METAL CHURCH, ANNIHILATOR
LINKS:
hyperionbandheavy.bandcamp.com/album/cybergenesis
