Kansas City metal hybrid HYBORIAN illustrate a perfect equilibrium of rich concept and catchy, heavy riffage with their debut album, Hyborian: Volume I, hitting stores on March 17, 2017 via KC-based label The Company. Hyborian: Volume I is available for pre-order now via www.thecompanykc.com. iTunes pre-orders will go live on March 3, with “Maelstrom” as an instant great track.
As many parts stoner rock as it is retro-inspired and deliciously groovy, HYBORIAN’s Hyborian: Volume I takes the listener on a ride that emits wall-shaking-levels of heaviness and lyrical fantasy, remaining engaging for any metal listener. Immense riffage, barrelling verses and piercing leads combine to create a sound that invites the listener to sit back and become fully-absorbed, when it isn’t summoning involuntary elbow-throwing. Lyrically, the album’s storytelling style is inspired by Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories, but based on an interstellar, extra-dimensional cloaked being called The Traveller. Hyborian: Volume I tells his legends from the time before written language.
Lead vocalist Martin Bush discusses the roots of HYBORIAN’s lyrical inspiration, “I grew up reading pretty much anything I could get my hands on, which included me raiding my dad’s book collection. He had a ton of classic sci-fi and fantasy, from Asimov and Heinlan to Howard and Cooper. Because of that, this writing style comes very naturally to me.”
He further explains, “Basically The Traveller is a being that exists outside of humanity’s understanding of space and time. He is the source of all life in the universe, but is not omnipresent. He wanders the cosmos, visiting and recording times of great strife or hardship, great suffering or great triumph. We are his chosen mouthpiece on Earth, so we relate those stories, whether from far in the past or far in the future. We are also pretty into cryptography, so there are several hidden messages on the album from The Traveller if the listener is clever enough to find them.”
When a band says they built their sound from the ground up, they normally don’t mean it literally. Once again, HYBORIAN prove individuality in this department, as Hyborian: Volume I was recorded at the band’s own studio that they built themselves and eventually began also using as a rehearsal space. The album was then mixed by Justin Mantooth at Westend Studios (Radkey, Family, Godmaker) and mastered by Nick Zampiello at New Alliance East (The Red Chord, Torche, Trap Them).
Bush says that recording on the band’s own terms, in their own space, really helped them achieve their best product: “We decided to build our own space to record simply because it cost us about what it would have cost to track at a decent studio, but now we have a home base to make record after record after record. The art of crafting an album as opposed to a group of songs is somewhat lost, or at least relegated to the realms of people with incredibly deep pockets, so being able to really play around and do all the extra stuff that makes an album an album was really important to us.”
Listen in as Ace Sims speaks with his brothers from KC about the new album and the upcoming tour
HYBORIAN is:
Martin Bush – lead vocals, guitar
Ryan Bates – vocals, guitar
Justin Rippeto – drums
Anthony Diale – bass
New Album Hyborian: Volume I, out March 17. Available Now on Limited Edition Vinyl, CD and Cassette via www.thecompanykc.com
Volume I track listing:
1) As Above, So Below
2) Maelstrom
3) Blood for Blood
4) Dead Lies Dreaming
5) Ajna
6) Dross
Midwestern U.S. Tour Begins March 16 in Kansas City
3/16 Kansas City, MO @ Riot Room w/ Iron Reagan, Power Trip
3/17 Kansas City, MO @ Private Location Release Party w/ Keef Mountain, Expo 70, Orphans of Doom, Inner Altar (reply with inquiries)
3/18 Omaha, NE @ O’Leavers w/ Dirty Talker
3/19 Lincoln, NE @ Duffy’s Tavern w/ High Ruler, Sweats
3/20 Des Moines, IA @ Vaudeville Mews
3/21 Iowa City, IA @ Gabes
3/22 Chicago, IL @ Township w/ Guerilla
3/23 Madison, WI @ The Frequency
3/24 Minneapolis, MN @ Hexagon Bar w/ Lungs
3/25 St. Louis, MO @ Fubar w/ Bastard
