Review by Rosh on March 30, 2022.

There's a lot of metal releases still coming out that are musically faithful to styles long predating the sleek, overly clean production they're presented with. This might be a somewhat unfortunate fact, but it's hardly a fatal flaw considering a lot of it comes from established bands on big labels who can still make the music sound pretty natural. On the other hand, having the software skills and equipment to mix semi-pro sounding, but not quite, recordings at home, with little in the way of musical substance or quality, is pretty pointless. One would initially be perplexed as to why that's so common nowadays, why put in the effort to record something that mimicks the professional process when you're not only incapable of making it sound truly professional, but also incapable of writing decent songs.

That's just it, though. There's very little effort to any of it, as listening to something like Poisoned Ash reveals. This is apparently death/doom metal, but whereas modern greats like Hooded Menace, Temple Of Void, and Spectral Voice put emphasis on both the death and doom, this places little emphasis on either and relies too heavily on hokey layering and ambience that would bomb in any sort of live setting. The shells of riffs there are to be found here don't hit hard at all, it's almost all continuous chugging with a digitized and dry guitar tone under the contrived attempt at atmosphere, and then occasionally there's unmuted guitar notes that might conjure some Bolt Thrower or Asphyx riffs if they weren't played with such an evident lack of conviction. The actual picking patterns are mere noodles and do not cut through in any way as metal riffs are known to.

The vocals are a passable Martin Van Drunen-inspired yelp that actually does sound kind of tortured, which is definitely the best thing here, but it can't make up for the hollowness of the compositions or the airy guitar tone. The drum programming here is also some of the laziest and most distracting I've heard. I don't know what program was used to create these drum beats, but the sound is incessant ticking to the point where when an actual fill comes in, it sounds very different from a human playing drums, which is not what you want with programmed percussion. This also adds to the not-quite-professional sound of this EP I mentioned before; it sounds pretty awkward for the most part which derails the focus on atmosphere.

That's the thing with death/doom, too. It can be one of the most atmospheric styles of metal hands down with the right foundations - a steady riff bed, engaging songwriting, sinister performances, whereas Kybalion only has a type of self-insistent atmosphere that seems to think it's really captivating despite no moments on this release standing out anymore than the others. They should focus on writing memorable songs before heading back into their homemade studios.

Rating: 1.2 out of 10