Band:	Ysyry Mollvün
Album:	Ysyry Mollvün
Style:	Melodic black metal
Release date:	February 2022

01. K’aux Rise
02. K’aux See Reconquista Ysyry
03. K’aux Talks To Espirito Del Monte
04. K’aux Lament
05. San La Muerte I
06. San La Muerte II

Ysyry Mollvün’s self-titled debut is a fix for those who like their black metal to be atmospheric, melodic, with a folk touch, with infinite hooks, and with a fine storyline to back everything up.

The band started as a project by Argentine musician Zupai Ulen back in 2012. A few years later, Antonio Sanna of Downfall Of Nur fame joined, initially as producer, and later he got involved with the music, composing arrangements for acoustic guitars and native instruments such as the charango, sikus, flutes, and percussions. If I got it right, the band’s name means ‘Blood River’ in the languages of indigenous people of South America. The superb blood red cover art seems to reveal what it’s all about.

The story I mentioned in the introduction kind of sits at the opposite side of the one of Prometheus. It is about K’aux, a being that was once human and who was educated by the Selk’nam gods to teach the tribe what they needed to survive the adversary conditions of the extreme south of the world. But K’aux didn’t do that, and his punishment was to lie forever, neither dead nor alive, in the centre of the earth. There is more to this, but you can read it all at Bandcamp.

Now, let’s talk music. I normally don’t like doing this, but I feel compelled to point out only some of the many time stamps that I highly recommend you check out in this particular album. Let’s just say that I want to share with you some of the instances that made me turn my head and smile with satisfaction during Ysyry Mollvün’s runtime. As Radu said in this review, “if you’re making a black metal album and the melodies don’t get stuck in my head, it’s not because they’re black metal, it’s because they’re not good enough”. And this album is full of melodies that have been stuck in my head since the early stream I heard back in January. So, here we go: “K’aux Rise” at 1’04”, “K’aux See Reconquista Ysyri” at 1’30”, “K’aux Talks To Espirito Del Monte” at 1’36”, the whole intro of “K’aux Lament”, “San La Muerte I” at 0’48”, and “San La Muerte II” at 0’34”. These are just some examples, and I have mainly pointed out the melodic parts. There is also a very riffy and menacing side to the songwriting that I urge you to discover on your own by listening to Ysyry Mollvün in its entirety.

The production is fairly unpolished, and the focus is on the guitars and the vocals. This is actually my only criticism about the album; I would have liked the drums to be more prominent in the mix because the drumming is absolutely thunderous and pummelling, and the cymbals are so skilfully played. But I found them sounding a bit muffled. Anyway, I am just being pedantic here.

With interesting lyrics that incorporate cultural references and some totally captivating, extreme music, Ysyry Mollvün’s debut is a must-listen for fans of any black metal style. Clocking in at just over 35 minutes, it leaves you wanting more and this is a major (and rare, these days) asset for an album. At no point does it feel tiring, dragging, or anything similar. It is one of these albums that come out of the blue (or should I say, red?), without warning, and end up being so exciting.

“What's wrong with our land?
Where are our gods?
Where are the tribes that worshiped them?
Who poisoned the rivers and killed the forest?
What did they do with us and with our land?”