Band: Hyban Draco
Title: Frozen Whispers (Demons Battle)
Label: Copro Productions / Casket
Distribution: Plastic Head Distribution
Release date: 2010
Review: CD

Hyban Draco, the main band of Hyban Sparda (music, lyrics, lead guitars and vocals; he took care of the artwork as well, by the way), recorded this full length in 2009 at Zenith Recordings with Frank Andiver (the guy who also took care of the last Nameless Crime-album; review posted on May 22nd 2011). With three fellow-musicians, Hyban created an energetic and melodic form of slightly epic and symphonic Black Metal with a pounding rhythm and a grimly created atmosphere. Even though these guys aren’t ‘corpse-painted’, they do remind me to Last Episode-bands like Forsth and Aeba – going for both the song writing and performance. Yet: no copy-cat bullshit, even though certainly not renewing at all.
Frozen Whispers won’t work anymore. Unfortunately it sounds too ‘passé’, making abstraction of the nice ideas and satisfying performance. Fifteen years ago I would recommend this material actively, yet now it just accompanies my thoughts to melancholic times of nineties’ bitterness.

72/100

Ivan Tibos.