The heavy riff or the ambient drone, improvised rock music always seems to end up in one of the two. Surface of Ece(y)on's debut album, The King Beneath the Mountain, showed both sides, but focused primarily on the latter, creating atmospheric planetarium music. The two heavy riffages were album opener and highlight "The Open Sea" and the thumping overdriven freakout "The Grasshopper King." With the band's new album, they've decided to unleash the Dragyyn. The dragon, I take it, is Dick Baldwin, the band's guitarist (of three) responsible for the lead riff on "The Open Sea." Those who dug "The Open Sea" on the band's first album may even be happier with Dragyyn as it is a bit more of a "riff" album than a "drone" album. "Stolen Wind" opens the album much like "The Open Sea" with the band's most concise and powerful statement. Matching lick for lick with Bardo Pond and Acid Mothers Temple, the song is driven by hard pounding drums and pyschedelic guitar that sounds, literally, like it's on fire. The best part of the song, however, is the sound. Even though it was recorded live with no overdubs, the recording has this cathedral-like feel—something other bands probably spend weeks in the studio trying to create that Surface of Eceon pulls off naturally. Also focused on riffs, "Victory Of Ice and Magyk" develops, after a shimmering first couple minutes, into a simple but righteous guitar solo. Also strong is "Over Land, Over Ice"; where "The Grasshopper King" reminded me a lot of Landing's "Rial Veed Fiir" from Oceanless only a lot heavier, this track reminds me a lot of something from Seasons. The guitars meld into something really accessible and pop during the first half of the song before blurring out into a Windy and Carl-esque glacier drift—very Landing-esque and pretty. The album ends with a 20-minute slow build. Keep clear of the Dragyyn as he is "Freeing the Wind"; he is maneuvering with difficulty. Whereas the build that ended the previous album was allowed to receed, leaving the listener content and calm, this one ends in a fury, leaving the listener with nothing to say but "wicked." Or maybe "wycked." You'd probably have to buy three or four Acid Mothers albums to find six tracks as great as these.
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