Dryad – Y

 

Dryad – Y
Self released – 2023
Rock, Stoner, Metal
Rated: ****

Dryad. As usual, there are more bands named Dryad. But this one hails form Würzburg, Germany and brings us some very tasty stonerrock and metal. They released their Y album in March of this year. So, only a week or so ago. (One of the other Dryad bands released their crust core blackened death metal album The Abyssal Plain in January and they reside in Iowa, USA.) And it’s the follow-up to their five track Rehearsal Tape demo from 2018. In fact, it’s a reworking, re-recorded version of the five tracks  on that album, with another five new ones. Their metal side has been brought even more to the surface and manages to seduce you and make you dive ever deeper into the Y. The often very angular drums sit perfectly beneath the riffs whenever they opt for that metal approach and when they go for that more desert aura, singing sand, floating guitar work, the drums become this spacious and very clean under current. Beautifully done, just listen to the fifth track Darvaza to hear a perfect example of this. And it shows the band can do that sharp and vicious stuff as well as the more melodic and roomy stuff. That song also sports some of the more progressive ventures the German three embark on during this album. And is followed by the perhaps most straightforward hard rocking The Devils Breath. And if there wasn’t that middle section in that track, with solo and extra stomping bravado, which slowly dissipates in the end, might even be seen as some very nostalgic speedrock. Dryad displays a multitude of possibilities, and there’s always something very willful and headstrong about the choices made, Of Knaves And Fools for instance slowly seems to meander, where you are gradually submerged into a hypnotic state, and just in time shaken awake again before you went to deep. There’s a lot, but there is never any pretentions, its just Dryad and it’s just Y…  And it’s the reason you should be checking it out…

(Written by JK)

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