Band:	Pyres
Album:	Yun
Style:	Progressive sludge metal
Release date:	March 07, 2025
A review by:	musclassia

01. Mononeurvosa
02. Some, Not All, Came Back
03. A Depth Charge In A Dead Sea
04. Granular Flow
05. Nova Cruciatus
06. Lineage
07. Old Dogs

Typically, when a band goes a decade after their debut album without releasing anything further, it’s safe to assume that they fall under the ‘one-album wonder’ category. However, although a Year Of Sleep turned into 12 years, Pyres have ultimately stirred from their slumber, and they’ve come out blazing here.

I can’t find any immediately available information to explain the prolonged absence on the part of Pyres, as there’s been but the one line-up change in the interim from what I can see (Aleks Hara replacing Matt Sloetjes as drummer), but considering the warm reception that Year Of Sleep was treated to, one has to imagine that extenuating circumstances underpinned the release gap. The Canadian quartet certainly aren’t striking while the iron is hot, but Yun is more than strong enough an album to reignite interest in the group.

Now, when an album is subjected to genre tags including prog, sludge and stoner, it’s off to a very good start when it comes to winning me over as a fan; Horseburner’s Voice Of Storms had the same tags and ranked among my favourite releases in 2024. Yun leans more towards sludge than that album, with a meaty rowdiness on several tracks reminiscent of a less thrashy High On Fire, but quite a lot of the record also falls into the kind of sludge-lite style popularized by Baroness. While the vocals are gruff and roaring, and the riffs are often bruising, there’s a healthy dose of Southern rock-laced melody to lighten things up.

Some of those licks arise later on during opening track “Mononeurvosa”, which for the bulk of its runtime is a conveyer belt of tasty riffs that alternate between doomy trudging and slick groove. “Some, Not All, Came Back” builds on this by steering the album more towards stoner metal in the vein of early The Sword, featuring duelling guitar leads and fun desert driving energy in the verses. It also pushes the envelope in terms of variety in the second half, deftly transitioning into cleaner grooves, and later a really pleasant psychedelic instrumental bridge.

Other songs later on the album attempt to weave similar memorable moments into their fabric; the run of “Granular Flow” through to “Lineage” is the most consistently up-tempo and rowdy section of the tracklist, with each song throwing out loud, fuzzy, bluesy sludge riffs. These songs don’t entirely hit the mark; the ‘chorus’ of “Granular Flow” is slightly awkward in its vocal delivery, and the same can be said for “Lineage”. However, the more stoner metal-oriented “Lineage” has some neat cleaner passages, including a fun tom-driven build in its final minute, while the strength of the riffs in “Granular Flow” mostly overcome the vocal limitations. The most impressive of this trio of tracks, however, is “Nova Cruciatus”, both for the sheer visceral impact of one particularly bruising riff that kicks in around the halfway mark, but also for the eerie psych-tinged clean guitar passage in its final minutes, and the fierce explosion of intensity it segues into to cap off the song.

The two tracks that stand out most in the tracklist are also the two longest songs on the album, and each of them is remarkable for different reasons. Closer “Old Dogs” is slow, sad and melodic, with the edge taken off Andrew Wilson’s vocals and plenty of inviting clean guitar work; this song definitely has more than a touch of Baroness to it, and also perhaps a resemblance to Yob’s lighter material. “A Depth Charge In A Dead Sea” also has cleanliness and melody to it, but taking a distinct form; the epic doom slant to the track, particularly in the closing minutes, readily invites comparisons to Pallbearer, and this mix-up in approach committed to over such a lengthy track pays off handsomely, with this song arguably being the standout feature on the record.

It's been a long time coming, but Yun has stuck the landing upon finally arriving; it’s a worthy addition to the current sludge/stoner metal scene, and it hopefully won’t be so long before more come our way from Pyres.