Artist: Pry
Label: Self-released
Release: 2012
Runtime: 1:40:49
Rating: 3.2/5
Not so long ago, the Serbian metal and alternative scene was a total blank for us up here. Apart from the new-wave atmosphere of Belgrade’s unmistakable garage scene, there wasn’t much else on our side of the Alps to speak of. Still, claiming that little is happening south of our border would be unfair and just plain wrong. Empirical proof is the new wave of fresh blacksmiths of the heavy sound, who carry something else edible in their DNA besides steel metal. Some of these worshippers of impurity have recently popped up, believe it or not, outside the fringes of the Serbian metropolis Belgrade too, and three years ago Novi Sad put itself on the map of Serbian music. Responsible for this out-of-the-ordinary entry on the map of a new Serbian musical reality are Pry, who this year came out with a seriously hefty serving – the double album Transcendent Iridescence, which at the very least deserves a mention on our music portal.
Three years after forming, this collective of alternative-leaning rockers with a harder, market-savvy edge decided to serve up something, let’s call it, fresher and more dynamic than the competition in a market already pretty saturated with metal. Only a few months after their genesis, PRY recorded and released their first EP From Morph, and the recipe has been, from day one, a synthesis of the Seattle sound and the likes of Alice In Chains, spiked with a more progressively animated, Tool-ish rhythmic additive. But since these days a band has to handle not just the balance of instruments but also slick design, promotion, marketing and whatnot, few manage to lift quality above their overly ambitious goals. At first glance and listen, the DIY approach, ambitious vision and drive for perfect quality seem to have brought the desired results for the quintet – vocalist Filip Maletić, guitarists Arpad More and Bane Božanič, bassist Goran Zečevič and drummer Zoltan Simon – as their debut saw the light of day in April, telling you pretty much everything and nothing about the band. And the debut isn’t merely released; this web of ideas is impregnated into a genuinely luxurious package that you can’t fault on design, aesthetic polish or visual tastefulness. Honestly, you’d expect something like this only from bands that have already sunk some money into their musical purses. The last time I got such a rich sandwich of lyrics, visuals and lovely graphics was from Trent Reznor on the Nine Inch Nails record The Fragile, and that was more than a decade ago …
The gigantic conglomerate Tra(i)nscendent Iridescence is a schizophrenic beast in which the sound of the nineties, with echoes of STP and a shackled Alice, takes turns shaking hands with Tool’s sound from Opiate and Undertow smuggled into your ears, tripping à la Katatonia, the first album of the then still undefined Incubus, Staind, and who knows what else. The solid production leads you down the gravel road of ideas and subconscious in a fairly coherent way, though not without hiccups. The first half of the record is harder-hitting and rawer, and already after the opening step onto the platform of events with the track Silhouette, it becomes clear that the gem is rather unpolished and schematic. Filip leans too hard on the musical approach of Layne Staley, crossed with Brandon Boyd and Aaron Lewis, while the guitar duo of Arpad More and Bane Božanić, melodic but by no means pretentious six-stringers, feeds on the primal substrate of Adam Jones’ ideas (more the embryonic, unrefined ideas from the very start of Tool’s journey). The rhythm duo of bassist Goran Zečević and drummer Zoltan Šimon is a complementary building block of the PRY sound, but it’s clear right away that the somewhat undefined sonic picture is set up so that the whole doesn’t hit as hard or as effectively as it could. The songs are long and maybe a bit overstretched, yet the quintet spins its thread decisively and confidently, and above all true to its own formula. There’s no shortage of beautiful moments that lead the ragged yet lively rhythmic structure from melancholic, somewhat dim, foggy contours to imperfect climaxes, and every track on the first half of the album is proof of that. Among the tighter, more effective moments is the ending of Dance Of The Wicked, which the guys smother with rather world-weary choruses that sound as if, under howling Americanized phrases (I’ve had my fill of those with our sub-Alpine miracle Siddharta), they were trying at all costs to hide and deny their Balkan essence. A shame, because something more homegrown would have gone down a lot better. The guys have no shortage of talent and musical zeal, but the harder-hitting part of the record is more like sketches than fully worked frescoes that could reflect the whole potential of this young collective the way PRY deserve.
No hits here, but conditionally the track 8 Circles could be filed in that category. And since I’m a sucker for sick transitions and suspense, I’d put Indigo Eyes and the previously mentioned Dance Of The Wicked on my list of tracks that grew on me after some effort. The atmosphere that makes the band known in Serbia as one of the better ones doesn’t radiate from every pore of the album, but quality execution is audible in every bar of a release that demands more from the listener than superficially surrendering to rhythm and melody. PRY are masters of complicating things, and definitely no half-baked welders of instant orgasms (the eargasmic effect kicks in only after the tenth listen …). And we’re only halfway through the material! The second part is a completely different song and story. Iridescence is the half of the opus that my ears, at least, warmed up to and fell for much more. Lake Of Fortitude Pt. 1 is not only a more sensually played diamond of sensuality, lovely guitars and Opeth-like gracefulness, it also takes the listener into a far more dreamy and addictive universe of sound. In their less aggressive phase, PRY are able to weave something that resonates beautifully with both the grunge soul and the more progressive element of the forward-thinking metalhead who may be lurking in you. The epic design of the second half’s opening track is meant to lift you above the fringes of the earlier, rather repulsive imitation of already chewed-over flavors and musical contours. The arrangements hit the right strings this time, and after this levitation and the ballast thrown off, you get the feeling that a completely different voice has spoken from the same body. I admit I’m a fan of Tool, A Perfect Circle and the more homegrown sentiment of our own Father, and this time I could add PRY to that list without a second thought. The tantric mantra keeps unfurling nicely with Tidal, which with the opening suspense of River grows into the exceptional play of Waves. PRY prove that the band’s bosom holds huge potential for generating gorgeous emotions that, like the radiation of post-grunge supernovas, permeate the band’s whole musical being. The jazzy, dreamy Island continues with the muted echo of Flow, which sounds like an unreleased single from Maynard’s alliance off the 13th Step album, while The Leech proves that the guitar duo is currently more at home in the astral spheres of meditative fractals of microphonic coloring than in a direct attack on all your senses. The second half of what I heard steals all my attention and leads me to complete dissolution in the bubbles of imaginative tripping on waves of dopamine and endorphins, with PRY dominating beautifully between the left and right speaker with their elusive smoke curtains of gorgeous new music. Wasteland procreates into the sensual outpouring of the intermezzo Feel, and after the lovely overture of Drifting Madeline, it’s time for the cherry on top with the second part of drowning in the lake of sound, Lake Of Fortitude Pt. 2, which with massive distortions kills off the last atoms of doubt about the grandiose power of this Vojvodina export, one that anyone with a pinch of taste, a feel for good music and a gram of intellect could bet on without hesitation in the future!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0dFN733yvU
Honestly, the album Transcendent Iridescence is a taxing piece of work that will undoubtedly wring you out. On the road from point A to destination astral point B, though, you’ll go through plenty of transcendental twists, briefly touch beautiful erogenous zones of wonderful inspiration, sail through a thousand storms of soulful ups and downs, and along that wild and uneven path get to know at least the nucleus of the soul and feelings of Novi Sad’s PRY, who, I hope, have many more such musical epics ahead of them. They mustn’t tarnish their high standards or slacken in their drive for perfection. The debut is here and meant for repeated listening, but there’s more than enough room for refinement, evolution and improvement. Next time I’d gladly listen to something that follows the thread of the album’s second half, and definitely something with a bit more homegrown musical soul, imagination and heart. There have been a few too many interpretations and reinterpretations of the already heard in recent years, and the line between the inspired and original and those who can only blend into a sea of undefined lukewarmness runs along nothing but the footbridge of daring adventurism. The successful weave their own path to the stars, and PRY’s story has only just begun to be written, so everything is still open and nothing is predestined. We’ve made it through the intro this time, at least! Time for a new page with a little more independent dynamics, so …
Line-up
Filip Maletić – vocals
Arpad More – guitar
Bane Božanić – guitar
Goran Zečević – bass
Zoltan Šimon – drums
Production
Dragan Alimpijević – Pik & PRY
Tracklist
CD1 – Transcendent:
- Silhouette
- Dance Of The Wicked
- Sweet
- Gaze
- Gyro’s Last Spin
- 8 Circles
- Wind
- The Lifter
- Trepanned
- Indigo Eyes
CD2 – Iridescence:
- Lake Of Fortitude Pt. 1
- Tidal
- River
- Waves
- Island
- Flow
- The Leech
- Wasteland
- Feel
- Drifting Madeline
- Lake Of Fortitude Pt. 2
