Remember back when “Brooklyn black metal” was a slur, serving as a snide dismissal of any number of the Big Apple’s rotten exports? That niggling image of smug gentrifiers with combo amps and spanking new Burzum shirts captured the collective metal imagination several years back, buoyed by the success of bands like Liturgy and Krallice and viciously maligned by anyone who fancied themselves an elitist. The elitism remains, for sure, but Krallice (who were lumped in unfairly in the first place) have evolved, and erstwhile poster boys Liturgy have disbanded, returning to the Upper West Side coke dust from whence they came. Brooklyn black metal is less of a theory than a fact. The borough now lays claim to a host of hungry young (and not so young) bands that are doing well for themselves. Even as some of their members split their time between East and West coasts or points in between, the NYC-based representatives of Mutilation Rites, Ruin Lust, Villains, Raspberry Bulbs, Ash Pool, and Woe redefine what “black metal” means without abandoning its core ideals or pissing on their roots. Even occult favorites Negative Plane live just around the corner. With their intoxicating new album, Hammer of Night, Yellow Eyes have joined the upper crust of Brooklyn’s blackest.
The album opens with “Light Has Fallen”, ushered in by gentle sound of rain. Yellow Eyes come from a place of rust and decay instead of a pristine Northwestern forest, though, so the quiet only lasts for a moment. Punctuated by pained howls scraped from an unwilling throat, the surprisingly melodic riffing echoes the clear, clean sound that is so often found glinting up from modern black metal’s murky depths and coiled around shoegaze’s darker moments. It’s a sound that’s uniquely American in conception, but European in execution. Manic tremolo picking and intricate, studied compositions intertwine and evolve together, creating something that is indisputably black fucking metal, but still a little strange.
That melodic edge is a crucial part of Yellow Eyes’ sound, not an affectation, and is something that the band strives to perfect and manipulate in turn. The rawness remains. A brief acoustic interlude ends the grim-faced “In This Stillness” and segues right into the icy chords of “Many Long Fingers Bent In Pain”, with its hoarse cries and more straightforward approach that stops on a dime halfway through, just long enough for a sweet little punk rock fill to pop out.
Yellow Eyes keep up the intensity with an almost hardcore zeal. The frenzied quality of moments like “Ice Knell’s middle passage sound on the verge of collapse, but then quickly hunker down into a solid swath of tremolo hellnoise like it’s nothing. Hammer of Night’s title track pulls out the acoustic once again, plucking away at a simple stretch of moody neofolk before the hammer itself comes crashing down and the ride cymbal dictates the proceedings. The same formula worked well earlier on and appears one last time halfway through “Cabin Filled With Smoke And Flies”, though this time perverted with unsettling drones. The album fades out acoustically, petering off into silence.
Yellow Eyes' earlier output showed promise, but the amount of care that was taken in the creation of these six songs is obvious. USBM’s got a new dark horse, and Hammer of Night is one of 2013’s strongest black metal releases. Not bad for a couple of kids from Brooklyn.
