ALBUM REVIEW: Fossil Gardens – Hail Spirit Noir
For a band like HAIL SPIRIT NOIR, the only constant is change. The Greek sextet have always being quite experimental in their approach, even back to their earliest albums, but ever since the release of 2016’s Mayhem In Blue, the band’s imaginative mix of black metal, psychedelic and progressive rock has seemed to morph into entirely different directions with each subsequent release, making their next move, or any possible expectation for a new record, very hard to predict. Their latest, sixth album, does on the surface feel as though the band are taking a backward step towards the style present on their fourth album, Eden In Reverse, but also tempers this with a harsher, fiercer sound that’s closer to the likes of Oi Magoi, with the end result feeling like a beguiling blend of their many extremes.
Starfront Promenade, with its spacey synths and dramatic vocals, is a great way to draw the listener in, slowly building from a minimalist and ethereal piece of music into something that is dark and forceful, with thunderous drums and dense guitars combining to create an imposingly rhythmic sound that the lighter elements of the music are able to play off of incredibly well. The sinister black metal qualities of the bulk of this song hint at intensity without full embracing it, and they allow the spacious undercurrent to inform the sound significantly in a way that makes this even more engrossing. The Temple Of Curved Space provides a melody-driven and expansive take on the style present on the opener, with slicker leads and swampy synth flourishes making for a frenetic yet still atmospheric interpretation of black metal with a generous dose of subtly symphonic space rock adding an epic edge whilst still allowing the aggressive moments, especially the harsher vocals, to cut through the mix.
Curse You, Entropia sees the introduction of crystalline acoustic guitar and a greater emphasis on soaring leads, caustic vocals and steady, authoritative drumming, repurposing the dominant formula of the preceding tracks into something impressively catchy, though nonetheless ambitious, capturing a punchier take on the band’s highly progressive sound. The Blue Dot adopts a hypnotic, belligerent sound that is heavier than earlier offerings, but still makes plenty of room for the sort of polished hooks and anthemic components, including haunting backing vocals, providing a visceral twist on this album’s core formula whilst not losing any of its sharp musicality.
The Road To Awe is so cavernous and sprawling that it feels more like an album closer than a song that appears midway through a record, and it covers a lot of ground musically. It accentuates the hazier side of the sound that creeps into the music on the album’s first half, and uses warmer distortion to craft a much more reserved effort that feels like an experimental, desert rock-influenced slab of black metal, building to fierce crescendos before abruptly coming to a halt and returning the the softer style that the song began on, with heady keyboards, bellicose vocals and angular riffs being interwoven into the opaque and weighty backdrop.
Ludwig In Orbit, a short, immersive instrumental piece centred upon keyboards, is a powerful but sparse musical statement that strips away all harsher elements and acts as a great segue into the album’s final song, Fossil Gardens. This is a grandiose and imaginative piece of progressive and inventive black metal that’s cast in the same mould as The Road To Awe, but places a greater emphasis on the sonorous backing vocals and gargantuan keyboards, with the guitars, drums and vocals piercing through this angelic and vast sound to inject an acidic edge into proceedings, ebbing and flowing in and out of its quieter and more bombastic sections and bringing this album to a close in a majestic way.
The musical differences between this album and 2021’s Mannequins could not be more stark; where their last album leant into a polished, almost futuristic synthwave sound and aesthetic, this seems to retreat back towards the muggier, hypnotic sounds of 70s Rock, and especially that period’s expansive, progressive aspects, with a thick, retro feel running through the backbone of the vast majority of these tracks. Fossil Gardens is much closer in sound and style to 2020’s Eden In Reverse, but without the over-arching KRAFTWERK influence within its keyboards, opting instead for a denser, spacey ambience that only adds to the ethereal quality, providing some of its more atmospheric moments. As a band that is continually realtering their approach, this is yet another unexpected musical shift for HAIL SPIRIT NOIR that pays off, sitting alongside their fantastic back catalogue surprisingly well whilst feeling like its own beast.
Rating: 8/10
Fossil Gardens is out now via Agonia Records.
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