KYOTY – Isolation

Release date: 25 February 2022   
Label: Deafening Assembly

Intro

Noisy, rhythmic, and complex, New Hampshire-based KYOTY are a strange sound to dive into, but a hard one to leave. It’s one part industrial, two parts post, and a pinch of art house to satisfy the highbrow crowd. The two-man band took root in 2009 with guitarist Nick Filth (N’Zwaa, Trembling Love, UNISEX, and others) and bassist Nathaniel Parker Raymond (Conquered, White Narrows). After going through rounds of drummers through the years, the two now also do dual percussion duty. With all of this eclectic solo work under their belts, the duo sound even better as a team.

2012 saw the release of the band’s first album, Undiscovered Country of Old Death and Strange Years in the Frightful Past. After switching labels and doing a remastering overhaul, this album was re-released in 2017 as Remanufactured Realm of Ancient Annihilation. In addition to this, KYOTY released the Geomancy I EP (2015), splits with Host and SEA, and the live album Live at 3S (2019). Under quarantine, the band wrote and shared songs electronically, releasing a new single each week. After nine tracks were completed, adding a bonus track for the album, KYOTY is now ready to release Isolation.

The Album

With a slow shriek of guitars, Quarantine shrugs the album to life. This track is so sludgy it’s practically gooey, an incredibly heavy bass demanding an audience. It feels like this track starts over and over again, each time slightly different but somehow exactly the same. The monotony of the bass and a mournful sense of longing from the guitars make this track powerful beyond compare. Switching gears, Ventilate begins with a rhythmic mechanical “breathing” that would fit among the atmospheric pieces by Akira Yamaoka. It is a long while before the breathing dies down, but it never quite leaves. Above it, pounding drums play triplets alongside psychedelic riffs that you can feel in your chest. The emotional toll of this track is excruciating and so worth it.

The next track, Onus, is the shortest on the album but covers a lot of ground in its humble four minutes. It is difficult to find the beat here, and the sounds of electronic feedback mixed with pauses make it more so. You can really feel the energy coming off both the guitar and drums here, both competing for the floor. Now hopefully adjusted to the mechanized sounds of previous tracks, Holter immediately throws out the buzz and whirr of what could be an old fax machine. These grating noises continue constantly, the drums providing the beat and the guitar often only a brief afterthought. This track is uncomfortable and ominous, and that makes it terrific.

Languish provides respite from the harsher songs before it, a scratchy synth playing long single notes. The effect is similar to watching the opening credits to a cosmic horror movie from the 70s, the sound badly degraded through years of neglect. Almost too slow to notice, the guitar leans in before changing the sound entirely, drums played so loudly they clip the audio. It just gets louder and more intense as time goes on, disappearing before it gets too intense, and then blaring out through the outro. Rift has a strong swaying start that, combined with the scraping guitar, makes your stomach churn. The guitar shifts from scrapes to wails to crunches, the drums and mechanical sounds beneath both harmonious and aggravating.

Clocking at a little under 12 minutes, Faith is a long ride and the agony is part of the enjoyment. Genre-bending and melody-shifting, this track hatches, slithers, crawls, evolves, and ascends. There is a deep sense of melancholy throughout, the pain apparent even in the slight hesitation of drumbeats. The next track, Respite, leaves the listener with a sense of calm clouded by anxiety. The beats are rather soothing and monotonous, but the method in which they are played is nerve-wracking. The synth and guitar bleed into one another as the drums play for both teams, an absolute racket building as the music cascades.

The penultimate track is Memory, a song that is as full as it is empty. Few notes are played but they are prolonged and beaten in with such force they can be felt in your bones. Deliciously fuzzed feedback is the cloud covering a distantly echoing guitar, the beat muttering along. The final track is A Fog, A Future Like A Place Imagined, and it is the culmination of everything up to this point. The emotional range of the guitar, the bass, and even the drums is haunting, interludes of synth providing moments of reflection. It’s very easy to just zone out and let the music pleasantly wash over you as the album eventually comes to a close.

A Final Word

Killer drum beats and a squealing guitar juxtapose with messy cymbal crashes and a bass that’s mostly feedback. With all these sounds and patterns whirling, KYOTY write bite-sized instrumental epics that are as impressive as they are awe-inspiring. Sadness, anger, regret, guilt, longing, and more are touched upon in every track they write, and it all feels very real. Listening to a KYOTY album top to bottom is an exhausting and exhilarating experience, and Isolation is the latest in a line of masterworks.

 

Line up:

• Nick Filth (he/him) – Guitars, percussion, synth
• Nathaniel Parker Raymond (he/him) – Bass, percussion

Links:

Bandcamp
Facebook
Official (contains flashing imagery)