Thera Roya / Hercyn - All This Suffering Is Not Enough (2014)

The New Jersey atmospheric black metal band, Hercyn, came to my attention earlier this year via their 2013 effort, Magda, which was a tasty single track twenty four minute demo that displayed some serious promise. Flash forward a bit and in the springtime the band released an acoustic version of the aforementioned track and most recently this split with New Yorkers, Thera Roya. Thera Roya is however completely new to me and with just an EP and split behind them they are still in the process of building a name for themselves, too.

All This Suffering Is Not Enough pairs a single song from each band up for a total of twenty three minutes of music. The CD booklet features both b&w photos of nature and urban decay, there's stickers for both bands and its limited to just 333 copies.

Thera Roya kicks things off with their song, Gluttony, which is a sort of post/sludge metal with odd whiny vocals, which alternate to a more screamed hardcore approach. Thera Roya doesn't bring anything especially new to the table with their song, but I like it quite a bit. The posty atmospheric side is well intermingled with the bursts of heaviness and the heavily distorted crunchy instruments are all present to form a solid track, which really just makes me want to hear more of their work.

Hercyn's song, Dusk And Dawn, is slightly shorter this time around at fourteen minutes in length, but is very much a journey like their earlier work. Starting out slow with light keyboards the song quickly erupts to a more calamitous black metal piece that's ripe with atmosphere instantly. As the song works through its duration it has moments of slower speeds and melody, as well as, some really fetching lead guitar work both during the middle and ending of the song. Its also interesting to note that the band expanded from a two-piece to a four-piece with this album and having the two original core members concentrate fully on the guitar and vocals has really taken the band to the next level.

All in all, this proves to be an interesting split, but just as it was before, I want to hear more from Hercyn, because they are really onto something special with this one.