Band:	Cypherium
Album:	Moral Injury
Style:	Experimental jazz, Avantgarde metal
Release date:	May 2023

01. Stay Focused
02. Moral Injury
03. Dance With Death
04. Heroic
05. Instinct

Metal and jazz aren’t the most natural partners, but there’s been sporadic attempts at metal-jazz fusions of some form of another dating back over 30 years now to the 90s tech-death scene, and followed by the likes of Shining (NOR)’s Blackjazz and Panzerballett. Cypherium are the latest act to take on the challenge of merging the two genres.

New York’s Cypherium formed in late 2016 according to the band’s website, but it has taken until 2023 for their efforts to be translated into a full-album studio effort, with a pair of singles on Christmas Day 2020 and New Years’ Day 2021 the only other material of theirs that I can see. The comprising members of Cypherium identify the diversity of their listening habits during their respective upbringings as an influential force in shaping their personal interests and the distinctive output of their shared endeavours on debut record Moral Injury; other evidence of their musical interests can be heard in bassist Eddie Adamkowski’s other band Animårum, whose 2022 debut I responded favourably to. However, the variety within Moral Injury is sufficient in and of itself to assume the presence of eclectic musical interests on the part of its composers.

Most jazz-metal fusions I’ve encountered thus far have been pretty varied in approach, which shouldn’t really be a surprise considering that both metal and jazz are highly varied genres. Perhaps unsurprisingly, though, most of them have generally been on the more brash, hectic and technical end of the musical spectrum; perhaps technicality and boldness are traits that find the most overlap between musicians in the two genres. Cypherium aren’t frenetic and abrasive on the level of Blackjazz or The Canyon Observer’s recent release Figura, but at the same time, they’re not exactly attempting the seemingly impossible fusion of metal with the modern mellow acts that comprise the bulk of my jazz listening (GoGo Penguin, Portico Quartet and so on). One metal/jazz fusion of a more subdued persuasion that Moral Injury does resemble in one brief moment is Neptunian Maximalism; the opening minutes of the title track, while nowhere near as textured, do attempt a similar mix of droning sounds with jazz instrumentation on the part of Amadeus Sanchez’s trumpeting.

However, this is all but fleeting; the bulk of the title track is firmly metallic. The first section in which the metal instrumentation is really brought in on this song does feel like a perfect example of ‘jazz fusion’; beside the trumpet blaring away, the rest of the band is riffing with very free jazz-inspired eclectic rhythms, and if one were to ignore the bursts of double bass rolls, the drumming could easily slot into a non-metal jazz performance. At the same time, the collective volume and chaos beds this clearly within the realm of metal. This isn’t always the case; the song goes on a mellow mid-song detour for a trumpet solo before gradually escalating the volume, featuring a shredding guitar solo, more trumpet soloing, and an increasing sense of cacophony from the rhythm section. When placing the solos from the respective instruments side by side, it is very clear that the guitar and trumpet approach these sections very differently; the guitar solos remain mostly melodic and tethered to more typical metal solos, while the trumpet ones frequently venture into chromatic/atonal free jazz chaos.

When thinking of how to describe Cypherium, ‘avantgarde metal’ feels apt, but there are elements of their riffing on different songs that show clearer ties to certain specific genres. Although more rhythmically complex, the tone in particular of the guitar on “Stay Focused” sounds very old school 80s metal; in contrast, “Heroic” feels more closely tethered to modern prog-metal in its heavier moments, while “Instinct” opens with a riff that could have been taken from an early melodeath band, if not for Sanchez blaring away on top. To be honest, I feel like this song is one of the less successful fusions on Moral Injury; it feels like the metallic side is too conventional, and in searching to fit in with it, the trumpet sporadically interjects in a way that feels unnatural and distracting. “Instinct” does become more complex and technical as it progresses, but it’s the one track on the record that I would probably be more interested in hearing without the trumpet.

Although it evolves over time, “Instinct” does maintain a consistent energy throughout. Curiously, it comes right after “Heroic”, probably the most segmented song here, segueing frequently between ominous clean guitar atmospheres, jagged prog/math-metal riffs, and more classic metal rampaging bursts of energy. Despite the regularity of transitions, this song consistently feels naturally arranged, and the trumpet is a far more effective member of the ensemble on this song. My takeaway from this is that Cypherium arguably thrive on eclecticism and fluidity between styles and volumes within songs; my relative indifference to “Dance With Death”, the shortest and only non-metal song here, and whose trumpet and clean guitar solos do little for me, perhaps further supports this conclusion.

Moral Injury is an audacious record from a quartet of talented and ambitious musicians, and is a respectable entrant into the jazz fusion catalogue. It is a record that does feel at its strongest when it’s embracing the possibilities of making jazz using metal instruments, like on the title track, more so than trying to add jazz on top of something more typically metal, such as “Instinct”, but I also appreciate that is only infrequently dabbles with cacophonic noise. Not an album that I love, but Moral Injury is very much worth a listen for anyone with an existing interest in the fusion of the two genres.