(written by Islander)
We’re about to premiere a song from Walsen van hoop, the debut album from the Dutch duo known as Hexagraf that’s now set for co-release in December by Void Wanderer Productions and War Productions. To begin introducing it, we’ll share some of the evocatively worded background info provided by the labels:
Hexagraf is a dark, brooding musical project born from the collaboration between two Zwotte Kring members: Daan (Hellevaerder, Throne of Time, Duindwaler, Magistraal) and Floris (Schavot, Meslamtaea, Asgrauw, The Color of Rain). Their journey began when Daan contributed guest vocals to Schavot’s album Verstrikt in Halflicht. The creative chemistry during that session was undeniable, powerful enough to spark the idea for a new, shared project.
photography: Luuk Steemers
Thematically, Hexagraf delves into the grim realities of heavy industry and factories, capturing the relentless rhythm of industrial machinery. Musically, this translates to a sound that is slow, sluggish, and crushingly heavy: a fusion of blackened doom, symphonic elements, and raw, raspy grunts that seem to cling to the lungs like coal dust and stale tobacco smoke. Thus, Hexagraf was born!
We should also explain (again quoting from the labels’ materials), that in keeping with the music’s “sonic reflection of lives crushed beneath the gears of industry,” the band’s name “draws on the hexagonal structure of carbon (‘Hexa’) and the material graphite (‘Graf’), symbolizing both hardness and the inevitable decay wrought by industry. It also nods to the Dutch word for grave (‘graf’), reinforcing the bleak, death-laced atmosphere that defines their sound.”
And further, we want to share more of the stunning hand-drawn charcoal artwork created for the album by the artist Sulphuris, a further reflection of the album’s themes:
But we ought to get to the song we’re premiering! Its name is “Sterven is vreten“, which seems to translate into English as “Dying is eating”.
The afore-mentioned fusion of black metal and doom takes shape in this dynamically paced song through an evolution of sounds and styles. It begins slowly with orchestral strings that establish a grieving melody — a melody that is soon grasped and carried forward in more harrowing fashion by corrosive riffing above thundering percussion and fretless bass upheavals.
The music seems to abysmally wail and moan, even when penetrated by brightly flickering keys. The vocal combination of abyssal roars, blistering screams, and choral singing powerfully underscores the music’s harrowing and haunting impacts.
As the pace slows, the song staggers, the music seeming to choke and weep, but its tragedy becomes panoramic too. Ethereal tones glimmering in the music’s stratosphere might reflect visions of a different and better life — a life beyond reach. The song also shifts into more tormented and turbulent phases, with drums blasting and all the divergent vocals creating raging cacophonies and deranged conversations.
And although the music also again staggers and groans, channeling crushing desolation, it further creates sweeping panoramas of celestial brightness and elegant sheen, perhaps a reflection of intense yearning, perhaps the kind of dream that people being destroyed latch onto as manifesting the hoped-for life that follows misery and death.
Walsen van hoop was recorded by Hexagraf‘s members Daan and Floris, and Floris also mixed and mastered it.
Void Wanderer Productions and War Productions have set it for release on December 19th of this waning year, on CD and digital formats. They recommend it for fans of such bands as Aeternus, Thergothon, Mournful Congregation, and Sear Bliss.
PRE-ORDER:
https://voidwanderer.com/product/hexagraf-walsen-van-hoop-cd-preorder/
https://war-productions.org/product/hexagraf-walsen-van-hoop/
HEXAGRAF:
https://www.instagram.com/hexagraf.band
https://www.facebook.com/hexagraf