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Hanterhir — Nyns Eus Denvydth Bys Trest
(Easy Action, 2022, CD / LP / DL)

by Jon Davis, Published 2023-01-04

Nyns Eus Denvydth Bys Trest Cover art

Hanterhir is a band that’s always had two main stylistic streams, Cornish folk music and grungy rock, that cross in various ways and are sometimes infused with bits of space rock and progressive rock. Nyns Eus Denvydth Bys Trest (There Is No One to Trust) sees them mostly in a rockish mood, rather like a noisy take on Brit-pop with some Celtic elements brought in. It’s both grungier and less corny than Big Country, though perhaps in the same general territory. Several of the songs, like “Don’t Go” and “Hollow,” are melodic and catchy, but far from gentle in their approach. There are also times like the ending section of “Always On,” where the band drifts off into feedback and noise for a few minutes. In spite of the Cornish album title, the majority of songs are sung in English. “Diseghoryon” is an exception, and brings in trippy psychedelic sounds along the lines of Super Furry Animals. It’s also the longest track at just a hair under ten minutes, but in reality it’s a four-minute song with a six-minute coda consisting of echoing keyboards, strange noises, distorted voices, and feedback — structurally quite odd, but if you give it time to develop, it makes a kind of sense. Just for the sheer unconventional creativity of Hanterhir’s approach to arrangement I think of them as psychedelic, though they avoid the standard tropes of the genre. You won’t hear gratuitous harpsichords or phased backing vocals, but you will hear a twisted sense of what rock songs should sound like. Rather than mining the vein of “rocked-up trad,” Hanterhir instead forges their own vein that fuses qualities of traditional music into their rock. Nyns Eus Denvydth Bys Trest is another winning release in the band’s catalog, and several of its tracks have made their way into my playlist shuffle.

Filed under: New releases, 2022 releases

Related artist(s): Hanterhir

 

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