HYPERIA
HYPERIA “The Serpent’s Cycle”
By Dr. Abner Mality
The wave of Canadian thrash continues with Vancouver’s HYPERIA. While I still put KORROSIVE and TYMO on top of the Mapleleaf Mosh Brigade, HYPERIA is not far behind them at all and on “The Serpent’s Cycle”, they’ve come up with an enjoyable excursion into high speed metal.
First track “Ego Trip” is effective but pretty derivative; however, things only get better from there. The band is notable in that they often have a kind of neoclassical shredding guitar approach that gives them a certain elegance. Think of NEVERMORE or FORBIDDEN as comparisons. They also have a female vocalist Marlee Ryley and that makes them stand out as well. She sure puts a lot of passion into her vocals and comes across in ferocious ARCH ENEMY style with harsh singing. She can do clean vocals as well and her work on the interesting cover of HEART’s “Crazy On You” is outstanding.
HYPERIA really hit their stride with the track “Prophet of Deceit” , where the shredding guitar work is at its best. Other top tracks are “Spirit Bandit”, “Surge” and “Deathbringer”. The only hiccups in HYPERIA’s attack are the occasional clunky vocal line (“Psychosomatic”) and just a general feeling that you’ve heard this before. Nevertheless, when looked at as a whole, “The Serpent’s Cycle” works pretty well as combination of classic and modern thrash metal.