Album Review: Lybria - Circles

I can safely say almost 95% of readers won’t have heard of this four piece from Illinois, USA. Most likely because their unsigned and only have 158 Myspace friends, but this aside, profile views are trivial when scratching the surface of their EP ‘Circles’. It’s a bold debut release, each track delivering complex instrumental layering and swirling ambience with the ability to be overwhelmingly heavy, dripping with influences from bands such as Oceansize and Shiner but managing to hold its own within the five tracks.

Opener ‘Emergency Room’ is spacey and atmospheric, its layered instruments give off a wall of sound that is backed up very nicely by strong vocals. ‘Wells’ shows how the band can chop and change tempo with ease, delivering heavy post rock riffs with the ability to suddenly deliver something so eerily mellow, a prime example of their complexity and their skill when it comes to playing around with timing. ‘So Far From Lonely’ delivers a crushing chorus, and lyrics like “We saw the stars cave in, don’t let it fade away” compliment this bands obscure sound, creating peculiar noises that give the EP a ‘space rock’ feel.

‘Johnny’ has an aggressive approach, with a more of an emphasis on chuggy riffs while still managing to control the delicate balance between this and mellow ambient lulls, before the inevitable almost progressive metal bursts. Last track ‘Debris’ at just shy of eight minutes is what you have come to expect, swirling to a fro and creating an epic track that holds some huge moments.

Lybria have created a complex EP without being overly convoluted and leaving you behind. Although in some ways this leaves a band that is heavily progressive being slightly predictable, however for a band that haven’t been together long they are extremely confident with their sound, which is mature and vast.

4/5

'Circles' by Lybria is available now for free on Bandcamp.


Official Website
Lybria on MySpace and Twitter.

Connor O’Brien