After the success of previous album All Is Lost, Maryland-based pagan doomsters Yatra return not only with their fourth full length studio release in three years but with a complete overhaul of their original sound. The crawling fuzz of their earlier albums is all but gone here as the band rejuvenate themselves, adding thrashing death metal with a blackened edge to their own particular brand of doom-laden sludge.
Yatra‘s 2018 début album Death Ritual (Grimoire Records), rather than being a “grower”, receded in appeal due to the unflinching harshness of their slow, Doom-laden sound and the voice of Dana Helmuth, which sounds as if Gaahl had been gargling on hop-bombs. There were flickers of invention in the Maryland trio’s sound, however, and these are further explored in follow-up Blood of the Night (STB Records).Continue reading
The word yatra is a Himalayan term referring to a spiritual journey or pilgrimage. Locking themselves in a primitive forest cabin for a three-month creative process, it’s a term that seems pretty apt for Maryland’s Yatra, a Doom trio formed by Dana Helmuth of Blood Raven fame. Death Ritual (Grimoire Records) is the band’s debut album and is as harsh, gloomy yet stimulating as that process must have been.Continue reading