Review: Cyhra “The Vertigo Trigger” [Nuclear Blast]

Here’s a catchy, poppy metal album full of adventures, not always impressive but always enjoyable.

This album has a distinctive style, established in the first track, “Ready to Rumble”: a sort of very light and catchy metal with lots of synths and riffs, movie references and catchy hooks. Think of pop metal bands like Amaranthe or later day Within Temptation, but with clear and slightly raspy male vocals, performed in fact by Jake E from Amaranthe. This mixture of pop and metal is best exemplified by the wonderfully-titled “Let’s Have My Story Told”, with its cool electronic sounds, defiant lyrics, infectiously catchy verses, soaring choruses and energetic guitar solo. That one is the highlight of the album, but what about the others?

Similarly, “1. 000. 000 Fahrenheit” has some fast-paced synths, heavy riffs, a powerful chorus, a sense of urgency and catchy melody. Live a Little also has some nice electronic sounds and cheesy but cool lyrics like “My mama told me I was half-lion”, and mostly, an uplifting message about how we must “live a little”. “Ashlight” has a similar message about finding your own path and enjoying life, and a very catchy melody. “Too Old For Fairy Tales” is similarly defiant and catchy. Completely differently, “The Voice You Need to Hear” is a sort of ballad, with an irresistibly upbeat and uplifting chorus. Then you have the more guitar-driven songs like “Life is a Hurricane”, with its heavy and catchy riff and powerful chorus, another highlight of the album.

However, one issue with that album is that the music is very light and poppy, so it tends to go in one ear out the other. “Buried Alive” isn’t as intense as its title would suggest, and it mostly sounds like an average pop/rock song. At least the “wow-oh-oh” part on the bridge is catchy. If it is like most songs on the album, with a nice mixture of riffs and electronic sounds, it’s not particularly distinctive but it’s very catchy. Same thing with “Fear of Missing Out”. A lot of the songs end up sounding all the same, repeating the formula.

Because of the repetition and often light, not very intense music, the album hasn’t exactly made a big impact on me. Of course, there are some good songs. But not every song on this album is as interesting as “Let’s Have My Story Told”, “1.000.000 Fahrenheit” or “The Voice You Need to Hear”. It’s the kind of album I enjoyed but didn’t love. It just has a few pinches of intensity and variety missing for me to love it. But it’s undeniably fun and catchy, so if you don’t mind repetition and don’t except perfection, many of you should really enjoy this.