(written by Islander)
At the end of this week, just two days from now, the Hungarian band Hænesy will have their third album released in cooperation with Fractions of Life Records. Its name is Esentia, and we have lots of thoughts about it, but most important we have a full stream of all the music to share with you.
“Atmospheric black metal” is one descriptor of what you’ll hear, but it’s not an entirely satisfactory one, in part because Hænesy’s music owes as much to post-rock as it does to black metal (with other influences also playing roles) and in part because it doesn’t tell you anything about the nature of the atmospheres the band create. We’ll make an attempt to do that below.
photo by Bodnár Márton (ig: @31115dod)
Esentia includes seven songs and about 46 minutes of music. Six of those are substantial, with a relatively brief track functioning as an interlude in the middle of them.
The opening song sets the stage in ravishing fashion, creating sensations of celestial wonder and nova-like glory, and passages that are alternately fragile and furiously powerful.
That song, “Pæan to Reverie“, eerily and ethereally quivers and glimmers, and then it thunders and sears. The music’s multi-layered, reverberating gleam persists but the tones are frantic, and the rhythm section beneath them (which includes a very heavy and propulsive bass-throb) drives the music in a furious surge.
Adding to the music’s breathtaking intensity, massed choral voices cry out and waves of symphonic melody flow. But in a display of startling dynamism (which is a hallmark of the album as a whole), the drums vanish, the intensity suddenly subsides, and crystalline notes ring, accompanied by a slowly twanging bass. The effect is mesmerizing, and haunting.
But Hænesy begin building intensity again with slow (but very heavy) beats, tormented howls, and strangely pulsating electronics, and then they thunder and blaze once more, driving hard and submerging the listener within frequencies of sparkling and shimmering brilliance and waves of sonic grandeur. They continue varying the tempo and the music’s intensity straight to the end.
photo by Bodnár Márton (ig: @31115dod)
“Pæan to Reverie” truly is a stunning way to begin, the kind of song one of my NCS colleagues calls a “barrier to entry” because the temptation is great to hear it again before finding out what comes next.
But when you’re able to move on, “The Glimmering Expanse” provides, much as its name previews, a vast expanse of glimmering sound, this time initially anchored by rocking beats. But the emotional timbre of the music becomes more distressing, and Hænesy enhance that feeling by detonating enormous percussive crashes and then dramatically accelerating.
As in the opening song, they also intermingle reverent choral voices and harsh howls, and they repeatedly push and pull the music’s intensity and vary its scale. Sombre spoken words emerge along with beautifully haunting guitar melodies, but the music also continues to hurl listeners into stratospheric heights and interstellar reaches while the rhythm section continue their own dynamic maneuvers.
The third song, “Pæan to Qualm“, is the subject of a music video the band released, one that provides a constantly changing cascade of enthralling imagery as accompaniment to another enthralling (but also startling) song. Acoustic guitars, vibrantly dancing orchestral strings, and a beautiful melodic guitar solo (which seems to channel sorrowful contemplation) play important roles as this musical kaleidoscope dramatically turns.
That above-mentioned interlude track, “Aephrates“, conjures mental images of drifting through an interstellar void, one that’s hostile but also jaw-dropping in its vastness and in the dazzling nature of its endless lights.
Lest you fear that we’ll continue moving this introductory review track by track through the remaining trio of songs, we won’t, in part because their formulation is very much in line with the experiences of the first three.
They too will carry listeners far away from the pull of our gravity well, far away from the mundanities of our daily lives. They create sky-fields of wonder that are astonishing and inspiring, but leavened in different ways, leavened with music that channels daunting storms, terrible anguish, raging torment, wistful contemplation, and haunting loneliness. Or in other words, there is as much human frailty and flaw in the music as there is off-planet splendor.
And with that we’ll leave you to the music. You’ll know very quickly just how much appeal Esentia’s music holds for you, and if it does appeal (which we hope it will), be prepared to stay with it because it will be difficult to do anything else but become immersed in it.
Esentia will have its online release on September 25th via Fractions of Life Records, and vinyl editions will follow on the 2nd of October at 3 PM CET (a Bandcamp Friday).
PRE-ORDER / PRE-SAVE:
https://haenesy.bandcamp.com/album/esentia
https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/hnesy/esentia
HÆNESY STREAMING AND SOCIALS:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9eqrHQWeAdzTotmFLLBRuA
https://music.apple.com/gb/artist/h%C3%A6nesy/1449402875
https://www.facebook.com/haenesy/
https://www.instagram.com/haenesy_band/
FRACTIONS OF LIFE RECORDS:
https://fractionsofliferecords.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/fractionsofliferecords/
https://www.instagram.com/fractionsofliferecords/