Druparia: “Hold My Beer”.

Seriously, first off, go check out Darkness Everywhere‘s debut album To Conquer Eternal Damnation. Then come and listen to the debut from Ohio’s Druparia (a pseudo-synonym for the blackthorn plant that plays a part in some circles of occultism and witchcraft and is composed of folks from local acts Inoculation, Mythrias, Once Flesh, Sea Biscuit, and Eternal Legacy) and then tell me they aren’t two of the best releases in the style of 2024, maybe even better than the source material, Light This City‘s Terminal Bloom and Darkest Hour‘s own Perpetual|Terminal. If you liked “The Nihilist Undone”  from that album, this is basically a whole album of that. I’d throw in some Dark Tranquillity and Arsis as well to boot.

First, David Moran is a dead ringer for early John Henry, second, the guitars of Tyler Clark and Josh Gatka deliver the same peak Darkest Hour hack ‘n’ slash melodeath, dripping with intense melody. Then add some Light This City leads and atmospherics and you have an absolutely killer album.

The River Above rips from start to finish, with 11 searing songs that are packed with sublimely executed melo-death riffs and leads. They can do fast (a whole lot of it with the likes of “Voiceless Regret”, “Bereavement”, and “Bled For Comfort”), they can do mid-paced (” Kintsugi”, “Firmament…And The Renewal“), they can do introspective (“When Cranes Return”, album ending cover of The Civil Wars’ “The Violet Hour”). They can even add some gorgeous acoustics/piano/cellos here and there to “Bereavement”, “In Repose, Descend”  and “Sever the Roots”, the latter two being arguably the best duo of back-to-back tracks of the year in the genre, in my humble opinion.

The River Above is one of those albums I listen to from start to finish, with no skips. Every single shredding, slicing riff and solo in each track hits so hard, I grin constantly. I just hope someone a Creator-Destructor Records, Prosthetic Records or 20 Buck Spin reads this and snatches these guys up, as they deserve to be on a solid label with this scorching debut album.