Yellow Eyes - US black metal with stacked hypercolorful harmony & counterpoint riffs galore

[Eptaceros]

Starting a thread for this unheralded band to spread awareness and appreciation. I don't see many bands touching upon this level of immersive harmony and polyphony with such out-of-the-box phrasing and structures. I know a lot of people are tired of black metal, whether it's the fact that a large majority of the torchbearers choose to recycle lazy, decades-old riffs or their undying obsession with corny imagery over music. But this band avoids all of that and somehow still manages to channel loads of raw atmosphere, successfully transporting me to another world every time.

I'm in the process of learning and transcribing all their songs, here are 2 of my favorites that I made videos for:

 

[gunch]

Found out about them through your cover videos. Old Alpine Pang scratches the same kind of itch some songs from Weakling or Deafheaven did

In the outro do they move one of the notes of the main chord up a half step?? I remember that blowing my fucking mind when I first heard it. NO ITS A HARMONIC!?!? AH WTF

 

[nightflameauto]

Yellow Eyes? They win for the reference alone.

Loving the interplay in the parts so far. Gonna have to check out more of their stuff.

 

[Yul Brynner]

I like it

 

[Anant Naag]

Starting a thread for this unheralded band to spread awareness and appreciation. I don't see many bands touching upon this level of immersive harmony and polyphony with such out-of-the-box phrasing and structures. I know a lot of people are tired of black metal, whether it's the fact that a large majority of the torchbearers choose to recycle lazy, decades-old riffs or their undying obsession with corny imagery over music. But this band avoids all of that and somehow still manages to channel loads of raw atmosphere, successfully transporting me to another world every time.

I'm in the process of learning and transcribing all their songs, here are 2 of my favorites that I made videos for:

Love your channel and your covers, discovered lot of cool music through your channel including Virus, which is one of my favs now.
More power to you dude.

 

[Eptaceros]

Found out about them through your cover videos. Old Alpine Pang scratches the same kind of itch some songs from Weakling or Deafheaven did

In the outro do they move one of the notes of the main chord up a half step?? I remember that blowing my fucking mind when I first heard it. NO ITS A HARMONIC!?!? AH WTF

yeah, that's a great example of a simple change making a large impact. that song is bliss.

Love your channel and your covers, discovered lot of cool music through your channel including Virus, which is one of my favs now.
More power to you dude.

oh awesome, that's so great to hear! Virus is a pivotal band. Music is not the same since hearing that band.

 

[Anant Naag]

yeah, that's a great example of a simple change making a large impact. that song is bliss.



oh awesome, that's so great to hear! Virus is a pivotal band. Music is not the same since hearing that band.

There is a brand of dissonant metal that is not discussed or appreciated enough, because it is the bleeding edge of metal. I love bands that make all this effort to make these deep intricate pieces

 

[Mwoit]

Aye but have you heard the band Artificial Brian

 

[vilk]

Thanks for the rec. I'm a huge fan of Dead as Dreams, and I always lamented that Weakling never made anything else. Granted, this isn't just like Weakling, but I feel some Weakling juice in here. Klabautamann comes to mind as well. Krallice. But yeah, good stuff!

Yellow Eyes? They win for the reference alone.

Loving the interplay in the parts so far. Gonna have to check out more of their stuff.

It's a reference to Supernatural, right?

Love your channel and your covers, discovered lot of cool music through your channel including Virus, which is one of my favs now.
More power to you dude.

Just checking to make sure you also listened to Ved Buens Ende as well!

 

[Chri]

This is sick as fuck. Thank you for the recommendation. This is seriously some of the coolest music I’ve heard in a while.

 

[Anant Naag]

This thread has basically been a joy to read.

I love most of krallice's albums, though their recent releases aren't too much to my taste.

I am obsessed with Artificial Brain - Labyrinth constellation and Infrared Horizon are amongst my fav albums of all time and I have memorized every note on the guitar.

Now listening to Yellow Road, another insane find.

Cheers to @Eptaceros and his guitar playing, which I find very inspiring as well.

 

[Anant Naag]

Another shoutout to the new Imperial Triumphant album, which not as dense as Yellow Road, manages to achieve some impressive sonic feats

 

[ExMachina]

It's a reference to Supernatural, right.

Makes me think about scut farkus.

 

[nightflameauto]

It's a reference to Supernatural, right?

Whether it's intentional or not, that's right where my brain went.

I also love Imperial Triumphant and went down the rabbit hole a year or so ago exploring the dissonant / avante guard music branch of metal. Some real talent out there to be heard, if you have the stomach for it. Some of them, you listen in a dark room and you'd swear you're seeing the sound even when you aren't wasted. Incredible stuff.

 

[somethingsomething]

Great playing OP.

And yeah, there's TONS of sick experimental/dissonant black metal out there these days.

Some more recs:

 

[Kwert]

Great playing OP.

And yeah, there's TONS of sick experimental/dissonant black metal out there these days.

Some more recs:

New Thantifaxath dropping soon. What they’ve released so far is amazing and I can’t wait for the full album drop. I’m a huge Luke Roberts fanboy and the projects he’s on never cease to amaze me. The Gargoyl stuff (also with Dave Davidson) is very reminiscent of Virus but with its own twist.

 

[Anant Naag]

Whether it's intentional or not, that's right where my brain went.

I also love Imperial Triumphant and went down the rabbit hole a year or so ago exploring the dissonant / avante guard music branch of metal. Some real talent out there to be heard, if you have the stomach for it. Some of them, you listen in a dark room and you'd swear you're seeing the sound even when you aren't wasted. Incredible stuff.

Akhlys is fucking amazing when it comes to evil music. Check out Deathspell Omega

 

[Eptaceros]

To be honest, I don't see any similarities between bands like Yellow Eyes/Thantifaxath and bands like Imperial Triumphant/Skaphe. Yellow Eyes, as much as the music is melodically adventurous and psychedelic, it's all extremely consonant, harmonious and classically functional.

If we were to add band recs to this thread, they would have to come from a more classical composition-based aesthetic; bands like Abigor, Thantifaxath (as already mentioned), Emperor, Mefitis, Leviathan, Castevet. However, outside of those, I can't think of many similar bands to Yellow Eyes due to their particular style. So in lieu of that, I'll add that the Yellow Eyes-adjacent projects Ustalost and Sunrise Patriot Motion are equally as hypercolorful and nostalgically awe-inducing as YE, while still conforming to simple forms, melody and hooks.

 

[nerdywhale]

Excellent playing OP, and excellent recommendations ITT

 

[vilk]

I debated making a separate thread for this, because this band is not at all like Yellow Eyes, but so long as we've got some black metal fans in a thread, at least a few of whom I know are into Virus (and therefore I'm assuming Ved Buens Ende), I'll take this opportunity to share a band that I've been listening to for many years that has remained mostly unheard of. They started out called Krom, then changed to Kailash, which was like a Ved Buens Ende style progressive jazz black metal but with such things as sweep picking guitar solos, polyrhythms, and saxophone... The Sleepers is a song by Krom/Kailash that is one of my favorite things ever made by anyone ever, yet it isn't able to be found anywhere online. I might try to upload it to youtube myself and then link it because I'm sure SSO would go crazy for it. Also as Kailash they do an instrumental cover of Remembrance of Things Past that is pretty good.

Then they changed their name to Hornwood Fell, and while it's still the same band with the same vibes, they've abandoned a lot of the jazziness as well as sweeps, saxophone, etc. and go for a more straightforward black metal sound... though of course when I say "straightforward", I still mean 'avant-garde' in the vein of VBE, and I also find there's some Bergtatt era Ulver-ness about it.

Here's a track I like. They actually have a lot of stuff, like 9 albums as Hornwood Fell, but I don't want to overwhelm the thread with youtube videos. I'mma see about uploading The Sleepers so that everyone can hear it, but I might make a new thread for that.