Kyoty "Ventilate" Their Gripping Post-Metal With Breathtaking Scale (Video Premiere)
Like many other bands forced into an unexpectedly long absence from live music, New Hampshire’s Kyoty took the opportunity to buckle down and create. The long-running instrumental post-metal band, whose short-form output outnumbers their (up until now) only full-length, spent 2020 releasing a series of singles that explore the emotions and reality of that year: increasing isolation, anxiety, grief, and an ever-growing sense of “what the fuck.”
Now, in the hectic post-lockdown-but-not-post-pandemic era, Kyoty has collected these singles, remastered them, and crafted the full-length release Isolation with one additional track included as well. The tracks still have the same stinging truth to them now that they did then, documenting our collective mental and societal decline with crushing riffs and airy splendor without a word needing to be spoken (save for a sample or two). In fact, the riffing aspect of Isolation is a particular highlight: they’re unusually doomy and arrive with a savage immediacy, packing in old-school aggression that sharply contrasts with the dreamy atmosphere of the album. Expressive tremolo leads and cavernous drums set forth apocalyptically-sized compositions, and within them the band’s riffs yield attention-getting results. In lighter moments, when ambient explorations replace all this, the low-end’s presumed return hangs over the soundscape like an aural Sword of Damocles, infusing everything with extra tension—something the pandemic has had no shortage of.
We’re premiering the official video for “Ventilate” below, a track that demonstrates how the band can take an already massive riff and make it feel absolutely colossal.
…
…
The band comments:
“Ventilate” is from the Isolation series, songs written during NH’s stay-at-home order in 2020. The series is an examination of feeling more isolated than ever before, of new and unusual modes of living, of a state of separation simultaneously accentuated and alleviated by synthetic means. “Ventilate” is at once an echo of meditative breathing as a means of staying present in the current moment – a form of defense while passing through these challenging experiences – and a reflection on the frailty of humans being, dependant on mechanical support to prolong a tenuous existence in the increasingly threatening landscape.
…
Isolation releases February 25th via Deafening Assembly (pre-order merch here.
