BEAUTIFULLY SERENE METAL // SHYLMAGOGHNAR - Follow The River // Composer Reaction & Analysis 

This was an excellent analysis, I very much enjoyed listening to it. Thank you kindly for making this! Oh, and this is a one-man self-produced project, so... yes, we were all listening and heard EVERYTHING! Haha no worries, I don't take offense to constructive criticism and you gave lots of positive feedback as well, so it's only fair to add counterbalance. Also, I have enough self-awareness to know that metal can be just a tiny bit over the top ;) If the lyrics don't look like they were written by someone in a cylinder hat, they're just no good, you know? To answer your recurring question of whether the things you were picking up on were just you, or intentional: I am happy to tell you that all of those were indeed exactly what I was going for. Impressive really! The song was meant to feel like a river and many compositional and production choices made in it were completely in service of that. It always makes me happy when people pick up on stuff like that. The one point I disagreed with was the clean vocal/screamed vocal bit. It's a very common dividing factor, even among metal fans, so I hear it often. The thing is, I feel the polar opposite about them. To me, screams and growls feel like primal, unfiltered emotions, pouring forth from the dark recesses of one's soul - in other words: metal! No clean voice, not even by the greats, has ever made me feel that specific way. I feel that the two are too different to be interchangeable, and as a result I generally dislike clean vocals in metal. If anything, I think other genres should use them more. I can hear the auto-tuned screams already... The pop-vibe you felt in the end I imagined was because of the classic trick of replacing chords by their relative major/minor brothers during repetitions of riffs. I don't really know U2 well, but maybe they do that a lot? The reason I personally use it is because I like how it can turn the emotions behind a part around very quickly and then back again. Real emotions are rarely static, so it's something I try to capture. Alright, gotta stop writing before this turns into a book! Thanks again for the cool video! Nim - Shylmagoghnar

Shylmagoghnar is majestic, and ciminally underrated

I'm so excited for this album! Ever since I saw a mental health/metal interview with Nim I've been obsessed with the band. He's a talented dude, and I really hope he gets the recognition and success he deserves.

I came to this band (project?) on the first album, Emergence and what blew me away was that the first track is a almost 9 minute instrumental. No vocals of any kind. No apologies. Just gorgeous flowing and emotive metal instrumental piece to begin the album and set the tone (no pun intended). But then the second song starts, and it seems to be another instrumental! I was thinking, "what have I gotten myself into?" And then totally organically, at 1 minute 30 into the second track and almost 10 and a half minutes into the album, vocals begin. And overall the album has quite a instrumental sense to it anyway, due to the style and the composition. And there are other full length instrumentals. It's incredibly effective at giving the whole a sense of epic, introspective journey.

Wow, I haven’t heard of this group. I REALLY enjoyed it. Thanks for whoever recommended this!

Reminds me a a bit of Wintersun and Aether Realm. Shylmagoghnar are awesome, my favorite track by them is probably I Am The Abyss, beautiful melodic metal.

melodeath friday was a success. i think of this song as a blackened melodeath epic - it takes it's time on a journey with some unexpected stops along the way

Never heard of these guys, but this is the kind of melodic black/death metal I can get into. This didn't blow me away or anything but I found it enjoyable with enough interesting elements that makes me intrigued to hear more.

I think it is time maybe to call this kind of music Melo-Black Metal, as the equivalent melody wise to Melo-Death, and it is not pejorative in my opinion, on the contrary...I love what this band does and you did react to another song/album from them 3 years ago & you liked it...I agree on the interest of bringing in maybe a bit of clean vocals (rather female I'd say, discrete & aerial), but I understand he prefers not...Only criticism for me about this song is it might be too short & I wanted some big time peak at the end, but it is a single song review, I have to see how it fits into the album context...I'm sure a lot of care has been put again for that album...and I agree about serenity...one of the most interesting bands among those "open-minded/joyful & epic" bands I call Sojourner or Vallendusk, so good...(besides, Bryan, I didn't get your U2 comparison, but rather some Insomnium, so some Melodeath vibes...)

it has a tolkien vibe.. like if blind guardian made slow black metal or lean into it

broke: unreadable band logo woke: unreadable band name

THE SEA. If you want serene metal. 🥹 Oh, and LIFE. Instrumental. Name fits. 🥹 All by the blessed Nim aka Shylmagoghnar.