Snake Monastery - Gydra

Take the cover art and the album title at face value, because Gydra delivers pretty much exactly what they claim to deliver.

Neurofunk label Eatbrain yields another narrative-infused drum n bass project in "Snake Monastery", a project born of the minds of Russian neurofunk duo Gydra. And, yeah, it's a snake monastery alright. The lore of the project is set out in the spoken-word intro "Monastery Gate", and from there, the rest of the LP is frantic and intense, like a panicked explorer running through a powerful ancient temple. It's an aesthetic that can be achieved in numerous different ways, but Gydra opt for something slightly more unique—an atmospheric approach. Atmosphere? In neurofunk? Unheard of. But it's not synth pads or themed instrumentation that brings this atmosphere to life; Gydra's production is slightly minimal, and the mixing is echoey and spacious, and it results in "Snake Monastery" (when it's not motoring through a relentless bassline) hosting a weirdly cavernous and roomy production style—not fully atmospheric, and not quite cinematic, but landing in a strange spot between the two, enough to be impressively immersive—that fits the project's themeing rather well. But let's not get ahead of ourselves here, because "Snake Monastery" is still a neurofunk project, through and through, and whilst it lacks the aggressiveness a lot of modern neurofunk aims for, it's energetic and it's driving. The basslines Gydra employs are thick and persistent, the drum n bass beatwork is well-polished, and the project brings a sense of constant movement, as if you're constantly running through this 'snake monastery'. The immersiveness is always there, but the drops are still based in neurofunk, and they still execute that neurofunk intensity in a very well-controlled fashion. This isn't the easiest balance to strike, but Gydra do a proficient job of striking it.

And yet, I did find that the balance may have been a little too difficult to strike at certain points. So it leaves "Snake Monastery" as a bit of a lifeless project, and often the tracks feel like they're missing just that little bit of oomph they need to actively stand out, despite all their relentless motoring basslines and whatnot. It's polished and precise and controlled, but perhaps Gydra needed to let loose their control a little—oh, and, just don't do the cheesy spoken-word intro/outro please.