Heavy Lullabies is the latest release from Italian dark metallers Lykaion and whilst on the surface it is a good album, it isn’t without its flaws.
The main problem is that it’s a rather difficult album to get into. Opener Heavy Lullaby is just so sluggish and un-engaging that it doesn’t exactly do wonders at piquing your interest and even when the full band joins in after the simplistic introduction, it all just seems rather generic and a little boring. Some vocals in the latter half may have helped the song to make a little bit more of an impression on you, especially since it’s a fairly long track for an introduction, but thankfully things get a bit more interesting with second track For Love, which has all of the energy that Heavy Lullaby lacked. It gets going with a punchy introduction almost immediately and wastes no time in picking up the pace with an all-round strong instrumental performance and a chorus so catchy it’ll be stuck in your head for days.
There are other strong inclusions, such as Out Of My Heart, a massive-sounding and catchy earworm of a track, and Accept Yourself is a more emotive song with a passionate vocal performance that shows another side to the band – the harsher section at the end is magnificent. However for every powerful song, there’s a song that fails to make an impression, so at times it’s almost like diving into a minefield and hoping you’ll get a good song out.
As a whole, Heavy Lullabies isn’t bad. It’s listenable, but it could be so much better.
5/10
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