Band: Sigh
Album: Hangman’s Hymn
Genre: Avant-garde Black Metal
Label: The End Records
Date of Release: 2007
Country of Origin: Japan
Band website: http://sigh.gospel-virus.net/
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/sighjapan
Metal-Archives: http://www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=51
When it comes to underground metal, Japan is often one of the last places you’d expect to look for one of the most innovative and original metal bands in existence.
Enter Sigh, headed by multilingual musical genius Mirai Kawashima, who is easily one of the most creative individuals in metal today.
Sigh released their first album in 1993 titled Scorn Defeat, a fairly straight forward (albeit high quality) Norwegian-inspired extreme black metal record with one significant difference - the use of Mirai’s synths and keyboards, something that was fairly uncommon and out of the ordinary by 1993’s black metal standards. Sigh quickly gained recognition and fame in the underground scene, and has since become highly influential to the black metal genre in general.
From Scorn Defeat on, Sigh has continued to push the boundaries of metal, often introducing avant-garde elements of symphonic samples and atypical metal instruments such as saxophones and elements of jazz; their 2001 album Imaginary Sonicscape is so experimental that it can barely be considered metal at all!
Then came Hangman’s Hymn - Musikalische Exequien in June of 2007, a record which Mirai promised would be their heaviest and angriest yet.
Hangman’s Hymn is a pseudo concept album which tells the dark story of one man’s hatred for mankind, his foolish diabolical pact granting him power in exchange for his soul, and the impending aftermath.
The first track of the album, “Introitus / Kyrie”, absolutely explodes within the first few seconds of the song with bombastic thrash riffs, orchestral stabs, blast beats and Mirai’s shrieking vocals - this is but a taste of what’s to come, because this album rarely holds back.
It surprised me just how well this album was produced and engineered; every single element of the music shines through loud and clear, and the bass in particular in incredibly hard hitting and adds a great deal to the album’s bombasity. Mirai and co. even requested that their more talented forums regulars sing and record parts of the choir sections for use in the album, something that seemed to have turned out quite well.
Hangman’s Hymn has become one of my very favorite releases of 2007, and quite possibly my most frequently listened to. Sigh has delivered on their promises and have presented us with another winner, a much needed breath of fresh air in a conservative sub genre of metal that could really benefit from the innovation.
