Hysteria is a NWOBHM project featuring members of the bands Haunt and Hellfire. They teamed up to bring the best of both bands with their first release Night Closing In. Overall, my favorite part about the album was each song was noticeably different, having the right change ups, offering variety to the listener. Pretty much every song, I thoroughly enjoy listening to. The experience is also special when listening thought headphones, noticing different sounds in certain stereos just added to the listening experience. I also am a huge fan of the album artwork, it looks like a mash-up of two horror movie posters I’m a huge fan of: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and The Exorcist.
“Graveyard” has high intensity guitars, steady and solid drums, and big epic powering vocals. This song holds abundant strength. The chorus is extremely melodic, also showcasing chorus vocals. I really loved the breakdown just before the solo, and it has a concise ending. “Prophets of the Void” has a familiar 80’s kind of style. I could use a little heavier bass with the high powered vocals though! “One Year” makes up for the bass in the last song with a brilliant bass intro! The band gradually accompanies from the drums, guitar, and finally vocals. “One Year” has a slower tempo, and sounds like a march. The guitar solo was really cool, and joined with the exploration with the higher register on the vocals; it was concentrated and well executed. Hysteria’s title track “Night Closing In” stampedes in with intense double bass drums and a droning guitar melody. I love these cool mixtures with the instruments you don’t always see with metal bands. This song features my favorite chorus on album so far, best melody over all in this song. The guitar solo was also really high energy and fluidic.
“Death Consumes” has the most fun verses to listen to, really love the diversity in the songwriting between each song, this one in particular is much different. I can really appreciate the different guitar pieces in the solo as well. “Look Alive” is my personal favorite on the album. The intro is extremely thrashy, composed with awesome guitar riffs. The whole song has high intensity/thrash blended with 80’s style guitar and vocal melodies alternating together. The chorus is almost like Dokken, with some clear Iron Maiden and Van Halen guitar influences thrown in there. The ending starred some high Halford-ish vocals that I thought closed out the song perfectly. “Soldiers of Tribulation” has a very 80’s style sound effect at beginning, metallic and electronic sounding. The song then pulverizes into a heavy rhythm with all instruments, but throughout is more solemn with a soft closeout.
