VYGR

It's hard to warm up to a band with a cold, impenetrable moniker like this and a guy rocking a keyboard in a band photo, but there are interesting moments of doom-y metal gaze on this Boston band's debut. VYGR play what amounts to streamlined versions of Isis songs (see album highlight "Shapeshifters"), with some refreshing variety (some songs only last a few minutes) and the best Voivod song title this side of Voivod ("Galactic Garbage"). "The Hidden" is a great metal gaze song, but, really, it's a better sticky note reminder that Isis were a phenomenal band that just happened to have trends and clone bands working against them. The aforementioned "Shapeshifters" does find the band branching out a bit; during the guitar solo (yup), VYGR sound like Kiss ― a really, really heavy Kiss. And that's pretty cool. But then there's rubbish like "Path to the Unknown," which can't be serious: a deep, "spooky" voice saying stupid things like, "this is synergy" over sci-fi synths? Suddenly it's The Elder meets those boring parts of Isis albums we all politely smiled through ― and that isn't pretty.