SKYTHALA

SkyThala biography
Appearing suddenly in late 2022, SkyThala are an American avant-garde black metal trio from Tennessee and part of the genre-blurring Moonlight Cypress Archetypes collective. The studio project consists of collective head Ryan Clackner (guitars, bass, vocals), Edward Longo (keyboards) and the New Jersey-based Sean Meyers (drums).

The concept of SkyThala began as something between a joke and a personal challenge among Clackner and Longo, whose shared love of classical music lead them to attempt to score and orchestrate a hypothetical progressive black metal band based on a particular admiration for Igor Stravinsky. When SkyThala surpassed their expectations and quickly took shape, Clackner recruited Meyers to complete their vision with his remotely-tracked drumwork. Forgoing the North American folk and country techniques which characterise Clackner's satellite projects Crestfallen Dusk, Vile Haint and Primeval Well, SkyThala instead draw and expand on the symphonic black metal pioneered by Emperor while adding flourishes borrowed from dissonant death metal and Stravinsky's harsh oeuvre, earning them comparisons to Thantifaxath, Krallice, Dordeduh, Blut aus Nord, Imperial Triumphant and Aquilus.

SkyThala's debut LP, Boreal Despair, was released via I, Voidhanger in 2022. The band claim the lyrics (which remain unprinted) address "Czarism/Russian Revolution, the tundra, Siberian prisons, and Rasputin, among other things." A sophomore album is currently in the works, replacing Stravinsky with a focus on György Ligeti.


- Gordy, March 2023