SHADES OF BLACK: SIGH, AMIENSUS, HELHEIM, THOMAS BEL, VARHARA, ÙNA

(written by Islander)

I’m no Cinderella but on days like this I do turn into a pumpkin (charred black).

After missing two Sundays due to festival-ing in May I had grand plans to partially make up for those absences in a larger-than-usual column today. But I forgot about plans my spouse had made for us this morning that will take me away from home and computer.

So the grand plan has been trashed. Rather than rack my brain trying to figure out what to save, I decided instead just to start and to keep going until time runs out (and I turn into a pumpkin).

 

SIGH (Japan)

It would be churlish of me not to start with Sigh, because they played my favorite set at Maryland Deathfest this year. A significant reason for that was the visual spectacle of their appearance on the outdoor stage — the costumes, the makeup, the hair, the stage adornments, the choreography, and the fact that the children of Mirai and Mikannibal were on stage throughout the set, one wielding a trumpet and the other a hand-drum. Here are some photos I took:

But Sigh‘s music was also fantastic. So I’ll begin with them today, and specifically with a recently released video/single from their new album I Saw the World’s End – Hangman’s Hymn MMXXV. This album is a re-recording of Sigh‘s 2007 full-length, Hangman’s Hymn, and commemorates their 35th anniversary as a band. Here’s Mirai‘s comment about the “Death With Dishonour” single:

This should be one of the simplest songs by Sigh but at the same time it’s got one of the strongest choruses in our repertoire. With a double-speed drumming and the real trumpet and violin, this re-recorded version sounds 100 times more violent and symphonic than the original. By the way, the ending is an homage to “Last Man Alive” by my favorite thrash metal band, Whiplash.

This re-recorded version of “Death With Dishonour” proves to be a hard-charging head-spinner with a multitude of moving parts — a glorious thrasher embellished with a spectrum of furious vocals, herculean drumwork (by Mike Heller), and bursts of fret-melting guitar-and-bass gymnastics. And the video provides evidence of just how thrilling it is to watch Sigh on stage.

The new album will be released by Peaceville on June 13th. It features cover art by Eliran Kantor. The video was directed by Costin Chioreanu.

https://sighpeaceville.lnk.to/Hangmans2025
https://peaceville.bandcamp.com/album/i-saw-the-world-end-hangmans-hymn-mmxxv
https://www.facebook.com/sigh-official-page-227550909275
https://www.instagram.com/sighofficialjapan

 

AMIENSUS (U.S.)

NCS favorites Amiensus could have justifiably taken a long break after releasing their two Reclamation albums last year, but instead they released a new single 10 days ago and said it was the first of multiple singles they’ll release this year.

This one, “Fields of Emerald Fire“, is about The Great Hunger. Vocalist/guitarist James Benson explains: “As a band that has often written about historical events, as well as current events, we used this opportunity to draw parallels between the past and present actions of governments and their oppression of minorities.”

Inspired by the horrors of that historical event of mass starvation and disease in Ireland, Amiensus whip up a scathing black metal storm of torment and despair, a storm packed with writhing, roiling, and blazing riffage and scorching screams, undergirded with powerful bass-undulations and blistering percussion.

The song also has other facets — heart-stricken singing and borealis-like musical waves of gleaming but melancholy beauty, as well as moments of mournfully ringing guitars and ruefully murmuring bass tones to open and close the song.

https://lnk.to/emeraldfire
https://amiensus.bandcamp.com/track/fields-of-emerald-fire
https://www.facebook.com/amiensus
https://www.instagram.com/amiensus

 

HELHEIM (Norway)

The next song is the recently disclosed opening track from Helheim‘s new album HrabnaR/Ad vesa, their 12th(!) full-length. The title reflects that the album is something of a split: “For the first time, the main songwriters V’gandr and H’grimnir have divided the album in two where they solely take care of the vocals on the part they represent musically. This has resulted in two very different expressions – not uncommon for this band, but never as clearly as here.”

The first half of the album, Hrabnar, contains four stand-alone songs written by H’grimnir, and of course “Geist” is where that begins. True to its name, it begins with a sinister and haunting overture but then energetically surges, albeit without abandoning the moods of the opening.

The music cascades in grand but deleterious waves, propelled by vividly hammering beats and augmented by feverishly roiling riffage and piercing yet distressing guitar-leads. H’grimnir both snarls like a strangling goblin but also reverently sings, accompanied by ringing keys and tones like horns and flutes.

Distressing, yes, but also breathtaking. And if you let the player keep running, you can hear the much longer song “Fylgja” from the Ad vesa half of the album, which “is about the four components in Norse mythology that we know collectively as the human soul,” Fylgja being one of those. It’s also a fantastic (and fantastically head-hooking and head-moving) song, but with a dark soul of its own, which becomes even darker, more menacing, and more spectral after the song passes its mid-point.

The album is set for release on June 20th.

https://helheim.bandcamp.com/album/hrabnar-ad-vesa
https://www.facebook.com/helheimnorway/

 

THOMAS BEL (France)

Now for a dramatic turn in today’s musical path.

My next selection is album-length but consists of only two songs — “If there’s something left to burn” and “Now it’s time to burn it.” As you might guess, both are long.

The first of those immediately creates a dismal and depressive mood through the slow repetition and reverberation of a scarred and scarring guitar refrain, capped by the abusive whine of feedback, which marks the guitar’s turn into a different but related refrain, which is just as ruinous of hope and bereft of light as the first one.

More changes ensue. The music abrasively sizzles, crackles, and manages to glisten, crafting hallucinations of a hostile void, with sounds resembling a wailing voice in the distance. That mind-scraping lead guitar also returns with another desolate refrain, slowly and raggedly moaning and severely weeping even as glittering astral tones still come and go around it.

That song could be considered post-apocalyptic. “Now it’s time to burn it” could also be considered that way, though it’s more haunting.

Like the first song, it’s built around repeating guitar refrains, though the first one is rendered in somewhat less abrasive and more gentle (and thus perhaps even more forlorn) acoustic tones. This one also introduces shimmering and glowing sonic mists, like the intrusion of spectres or glimpses of a celestial realm.

Those ambient radiations repeatedly swell, wail, crest, and recede, allowing the opening refrain to re-emerge, accompanied by percussive ticks. Variations on that refrain also emerge and cycle along, spilling tears of grief, at one point joined in a mournful harmony by chiming notes that sound like some medieval instrument.

Several times the song briefly stops, only to resume in displays of astral eeriness and evanescing angelic splendor. Eventually those otherworldly displays become frightening, in part because of the long howls of wretchedness and quiverings of pain that go on behind the shimmers and sparkles.

The album, released by Titania Tapes a couple weeks ago, is the work of Thomas Bel, who has also been behind several other solo projects I’ve acclaimed here before (including Jzovce). I certainly can’t promise you’ll find this album as engrossing as I did, but I hope you’ll give it a chance. Just don’t be in a hurried state of mind when you do.

https://titaniatapes.bandcamp.com/album/tt34-if-theres-something-left-to-burn-now-its-time-to-burn-it

 

VARHARA (Russia)

After that Thomas Bel album I thought it best to turn up the heat, and that does happen in these next two songs from the Saint Petersburg-based atmospheric black metal band Varhara. But the first of them also fashions an effective segue from Bel‘s strange visions.

In its beginning phase, that first one, “Праздник” (“Holiday”), also has an otherworldly aspect, a feeling of glistening and immersive symphonic grandeur. As it begins to ramp up, heavy bass tones and punchy drums make their presence known, along with acid-spray screams and solemn clean-sung harmonies.

The song’s energy continues to build as the rhythm section vividly throb, and its sweep also seems to expand, becoming gloriously panoramic and vast. Those clean-sung harmonies work again, as if bearing reverent witness to the splendors displayed before them, and the lead guitar soulfully spreads its own solemnity.

The second song below, which was the first single off Varhara‘s new album, is “Буриал” (“Burial”). It arrived with an intriguing and unsettling B&W video. The lead guitar that sorrowfully opens the song connects with the way it ended “Праздник“, and “Буриал” also quickly establishes a sweeping and immersive vista — a vista of heartbreak.

The screaming vocals are again tormented, even wretched, and the rhythm section again provide a strong, heavy, and increasingly animated punch in the midst of multitudes of rapidly sparkling and rippling notes. There’s no singing in this song, only the variation provided by ragged yells of tortured intensity. By the end, the song becomes quite jaw-dropping.

The name of the album is Первый вздох после (The First Breath After). It will be released by These Hands Melt on June 20th.

https://ffm.bio/varharapvp
https://varhara666.bandcamp.com/album/the-first-breath-after
https://taplink.cc/varhara
https://www.facebook.com/varharaband

 

ÙNA (Poland)

I have time enough (just barely) for one more selection before I turn into a pumpkin. My last choice for today is a four-song debut EP named …i Był tylko Zanik w Błękicie by the band Ùna from Podkarpackie Voivodeship, Poland, which includes members of Toska and Olesin.

I used online translation tools to convert the EP title into English (…and There was only a Fade in Blue) though something may have been lost. The same tool renders the Polish song titles as “Blink“, “Zeniths“, “Mona” (possibly a name?), and “Hibiscus“.

Not typical black metal song titles, nor is the cover art typical — nor is the music. “Blink” creates a dazzling introduction, through a collage of strange and wondrous tonalities that sparkle and moan, dance and dart, shiver and shimmer, and “Zeniths” carries those startling manifestations forward, though this time with unpredictable drumming, heavily musing bass notes, and hostile and caustic snarls.

The music of “Zeniths” is weird and wondrous — somewhat symphonic, somewhat spacey, even somewhat bluesy in light of a lead guitar’s contribution, and rhythmically disorienting. Only the raving goblin behind the mic seems familiar.

“Mona” is as brief as “Blink” but more subdued — though no less strange. It brings together an elegant but somber piano melody and alien theremin-like vibrations.

And then the EP closes with “Hibiscus“. And of course, Ùna are still way off the beaten paths, infiltrating the song with a wide range of bizarre, extraterrestrial tones and unexpected maneuvers, including piercing guitar solos that again seem almost bluesy — and sometimes scream like a tortured saxophone — but they’re also thoroughly hallucinatory.

Once more, the unpredictably changing drum-and-bass patterns will repeatedly throw you off-balance. Once more, the vocals are berserk. Yet another fascinating avant-garde spectacle, certainly not for everyone, but I’m left feeling rapturous about the EP.

I received this message from the band:

Ùna is a black metal presence coming from Bieszczady, part of Carpathian Mountains range.

Its first offering, …I Był tylko Zanik w Błękicie is an atmospheric black metal steeped in surroundings in which it was conceived, in worship and humility of nature and its ferocious force. Intensity, majesty, haunting yet seductive mystery.

https://unablack.bandcamp.com/album/i-by-tylko-zanik-w-b-kicie