March 21st, 2011 
James Shotwell 
Artist: VYGR
Album: Hypersleep
Genre: Metal
Label: Creator-Destructor
VYGR aren’t in a hurry, and you should know that. You know that part in High Fidelity where John Cusack’s character rips his headphones off and goes “When is this going to stop?!” A .gif of it might be used to sum up Hypersleep. Which will, in fact, put you to sleep, or possibly into a coma. I know it’s sludge/doom metal and I know that sort of stuff doesn’t exactly dance along, but really, this is an ordeal.
“Solar” is the opening track, an instrumental, and a vivid introduction to the type of monotonous, swamp-like levels of mire that characterize the album. It’s followed by “Flares,” which does have a tad more momentum, but can’t quite elevate itself above boring either. It features variously pitched roars and the same repetitious, trudging guitars throughout. Apparently one more note might have been too much exertion. Ironically enough, at one point, the lyrics start to sprout something along the lines of “…through the repetition,” which is repeated itself almost endlessly. The question is then, why save the nice solo and sudden glimpse of percussive aplomb til the end? Everyone will have skipped it by then.
If this was tough to begin with, “Orbital Hallucinations” is an instrumental, and not designed to wake you up. “Galactic Garbage” then clearly has the word garbage in the name for a reason. There is a little more excitement here if you manage to last the whole seven minutes, because someone starts screaming instead of growling. Were this not almost entirely drowned out by the same note that’s been playing on a loop for what feels like a millennium, it’d almost be interesting. The screaming vocals are very good, and it’s a pity we don’t hear more of them.
The nameless 33-second interlude that comes next, denoted by a dash (-), is the best thing on the album because it’s almost entirely silent.
“The Hidden” is, thankfully, a glimpse of something more structured. There are some changes to the tempo throughout, and a few more notes added to the bum-echo-scream-bum template. Further, about five minutes in, there are some pleasant duelling guitars topped off by a reverberating solo that’s full of panache and idealism. This part is very good. It descends back into tedium afterwards, but the brief injection of life is most welcome. “Shapeshifters,” similarly, has a bit of energy to it. Maybe the band are just slow starters, because there is a touch of guitar flourish tacked on here and there that lets certain songs stand out, and this is one of them.
Roughly three minutes into “Event Horizon,” a solo – what is now becoming the token solo – begins, using the same rough formula of pining along miserably then going up a note or two to sound positively elegiac. And at this point of the album, the elegy might be for my sanity. It might be dismissive to call it “bad” outright – people listen to this stuff, or else no one would be making it – but seriously, why go to so much effort to make a barrage of eight minute nosedives into boredom and nothingness when you could take some of your considerable technical skills and make something four minutes long and great? I like long songs, and I like melodrama, and the OTT – I’m a Nightwish fan – but counting how many songs until the album finally ends is never a good sign.
By the way, this is two songs from the end. And the last three minutes or so finally get some vigour into them – again by way of screaming. Unfortunately, the effect is so negligible that it’s hardly worth your while sticking around that long. Next, we have “We Drift” and that, personally, is it. Hearing that one mechanical pound of guitar noise and some sort of slightly muted siren (spread over four and a half bloody minutes) has finally knocked all composure out of me. My head hurts. I could cry with frustration at how awful it is. Some slightly monotone, Scandinavian-style vocals put in an appearance about five minutes in, but this is just tedium in a different package. Besides, for the final minute and a half, the same guitar sludge and banging reappears, and madness sets in.
OK, so I tried to be nice, but instead, I’m going to sum all this up in five words (doom fans need not apply): for God’s sake, save yourselves.
Score: 3/10
Review written by: Grace Duffy
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Just got this record in the mail this past week, and I’ve hardly been able to listen to anything but it since. I don’t find anything about it the least bit monotonous at all… about two or three out of the 12 tracks are very slow/downtempo, but it fits well with what’s going on and they are spaced out among the more upbeat tracks perfectly. To each his own I guess, but it seems pretty clear that you don’t enjoy anything in the realm of this type of music or what this band is doing (believe me, there are many more that are trying for a similar sound but end up being much slower, and without any of the creative flair that this band has). Also worth noting that on my copy, the first song “Solar” is clearly not an instrumental, nor is it long – it’s about 2 minutes in length and there are vocals through essentially the entire song. Not sure what copy of the record you were listening to
you very clearly listen to nothing like this sort of music as everyone can tell by the rest of the posts on this site…so A+ review, thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule from posting things about justin beiber and panic at the disco to reviewing this record
Why review this if you don’t listen to anything like it at all?
thanks for the review! i was really on the fence but thanks to this review i’m just gonna throw away all of my records and start listening to rebecca black exclusively!
Yeah, I’m with all of these other commenters… this album is absolutely fantastic. Grace, you should probably stick to styles of metal that you actually enjoy from time to time. I assume you also hate things like Isis, Rosetta, Mouth of the Architect, and so on.
Your review sucks. My little brother in grade school writes better than this, i wonder if he can take your job?
Add another for “this album rules, you’re a dumbass”