Nightfly As long as I’ve been listening to music, no matter how much great stuff I hear, I’m always searching for more. My eternal quest to discover new gems has led to me hearing plenty of crap, the mediocre and sometimes excellent. Now and again something comes along that I’m completely blown away by. It doesn’t happen that often, at least from a band I’ve never heard before, but one such release is the debut album from Hyperion.

Seraphical Euphony is the album in question and it hit me immediately and continued to get better with further plays, even more so when I managed to get a physical copy and crank it up on the hi-fi. Hyperion play melodic black metal with touches of death and whilst their sound is familiar, Watain and Dissection were the first to come to mind, the band have clearly transcended their influences to produce a remarkable piece of work. In fact I’m amazed this is their debut as it’s such a well-considered and mature album full of well-crafted songs. The riffs are hard hitting but laced with melody and dynamics with strategically placed acoustic guitar interludes and some tasteful use of keyboards provided by drummer Anders Peterson add to the epic feel of much of the material. Like all great albums it’s the sum of the whole that makes it so but the title track at over eight minutes encapsulates everything that’s special about Seraphical Euphony. With symphonic elements it’s beautiful and harsh in equal measures shifting through many changes from acoustic guitar and piano parts to blast beat driven hard riffing yet retaining a strong sense of melody.

The standard of vocals and musicianship is excellent all round with special mention to guitarists Erik Molnar and Mikael Malm. Their acoustic and electric work is equally strong with some tastefully played melodic solo work too. The album is well produced and clear packing plenty of punch, raw but not overly harsh.

If you haven’t figured by now Seraphical Euphony is one hell of a great album, one of the best of 2016. If Hyperion can put out an album this good as their debut then I can’t wait to see what’s coming next.