专辑简介

Ayr专辑介绍：Expanding on the promises of their previous EP, Eternal Sustain, the final release for North Carolina's Ayr finds a band that had already developed a convincing aesthetic further refine their songs. The songs on Nothing Left to Give blend together the band's strengths on past releases into a more unified sound that's truly impressive and emotionally devastating. Haunting synth washes, triumphant tremolo melodies (this time rendered thicker and fuzzier, sounding more like Walknut's beehive guitars), slightly crust-tinged vocals that fall somewhere between a roar and a howling shriek, all brought together in glorious harmony. Opener “Thirst” picks up where “An Opening in the Earth” left off, adding an extra layer via the synths that were relegated to a support role in the last album but get full membership status this time. It occupies that unsettling emotional space that's somewhere between indescribable joy and utter despair; it's probably more like the band reveling in depression. The mood is carried throughout the EP's 27 short minutes on a journey that's graphically told by the simple song titles: Thirst, Starvation, Hallucination, Expiration. This isn't just an album about death, it's one that documents it, tells its story as it happens. And, despite the pained hell that dying to exposure must be, Ayr embraces it, glorifies it through their music. Driving beats, this time with a more pronounced bass presence to strengthen the rhythm section, keep the focus while repeating melodic figures swirl past your ears. The thickness of the guitar renders the chords into a haze that's difficult to penetrate; are these notes being tremolo picked, or sustained? It must be a hell of a thing finding that tonal sweet spot where picking dynamics almost cease to matter, yet the weight of the melodies the chords carry is abundantly clear. “Hallucination” is the only reprieve from the maelstrom, a vacant, sorrowful instrumental with some vaguely post-rockish clean, trem-picked reverb guitar spiraling above the murky chords and plodding drums. Then, “Expiration” takes you. Its soothing Moog tones pull you in, tempt you, while it's the huge-sounding guitars that make you accept it. Rick's treated vocals sound less like the narrator of your demise, as they did in the first two tracks, and more like the the doorman of death's gate, some truly inhuman demon welcoming you with open arms. It sounds like Jesu, with all traces of humanity being slowly excised. I realize this review is more flowery than most I write, but it's rare for the artistic vision of an album to be so abundantly clear and so powerfully expressed. I've always had a strong reaction to metal albums that take their own theme deadly serious, as more than just lyrical motifs, but rarely is it something so basic and primal as the process of death itself. Nothing Left to Give strikes an extremely potent emotional chord with me, and I suspect it will do the same with many of you. That said, as a piece of music it's not without its faults; again, it's almost too brief. “Hallucination” could've lasted another several minutes, and that's just the interlude. I think it's too much to ask to have more material after “Expiration” as it serves as the best possible album-closer I can imagine, but I want to go back and hear more of the journey that led us here, tracks leading up to the opening moments to give more background. To compare it to a movie, I feel almost as though Nothing Left to Give is the opening act, one where we see the main character's demise but we don't really know why it had to end thus. Of course, the rest of the movie would take us there and show us, before ultimately revisiting death. Technically, the band is on hold. Whatever it is that's keeping them from the active pursuit of music, whether it be the attention their main project is getting or life just getting in the way of things, one can only hope that the band's status isn't permanent, that more of this story lies in wait for us.