(written by Islander)
If you were with us when I started rolling out this list 26 days ago, then you know I’m going to call a halt to it on January 31st. That makes this the last week, with five installments left to go — though there are rumors that Andy Synn and DGR may prepare addendums that include favorites of theirs which I didn’t get to.
This week will be a disappointment to me and to many of you, not because the songs will be disappointments but because my self-imposed deadline will force me to leave out a lot of songs that deserve this kind of recognition.
Today’s group of three leans into black metal (among many other things), though the songs differ significantly from each other — and they are all out of the ordinary. To see the other songs on the list so far, this link will take you to all of them.
THY CATAFALQUE
All of Thy Catafalque‘s albums since the early years have offered variety as Tamás Kátai has explored his wide range of musical interests and brought along a varying group of guests to help him do so. 2024’s XII: A gyönyörű álmok ezután jönnek is no exception. Indeed, as Professor D. Grover the XIIIth stated in his review of the album for us, “XII is perhaps the most varied and diverse Thy Catafalque album since Geometria.”
Many of the songs on the latest album were excellent candidates for a list devoted to infectious songs, but I gravitated toward “Vasgyár” (a word which I think refers to an ironworks) because (as Grover observed) it “is probably the album’s heaviest song with its bestial vocals and beefy riffs.” In that way it was a reminder of the kind of music that first made me a sworn fan of Thy Catafalque a long time ago, though I hasten to add that I’ve remained a fan even when Kátai has made dramatically less heavy and harsh music. For similar reasons, I also gravitated toward “Mindenevő,” which was presented with one of last year’s best videos.
“Vasgyár” has a lot going for it, especially for people who like to pound their chests and whip their heads while listening to metal. The music pounds and swarms, gallops and swirls. The riffing is thoroughly delirious – both glorious and dangerous in its maniacal maneuvers — and the vocals are thoroughly beastly.
The song also includes fantastic bass-work and a sinister and disconcerting interlude which segues into a phase that includes a darting and dancing keyboard performance that turns out to be infectious too — though even then the drumming will pop your skull in electrifying fashion. And of course, while displaying Thy Catafalque‘s trademark quirkiness, it’s very damned catchy.
https://orcd.co/thycatafalquexiiagyonyorualmokezutanjonnek
https://thycatafalqueuk.bandcamp.com/album/xii-a-gy-ny-r-lmok-ezut-n-j-nnek
http://www.facebook.com/thycatafalque
HAIL SPIRIT NOIR
Like Thy Catafalque, Hail Spirit Noir are a band who’ve followed their wandering muse in a multitude of different directions since first seizing attention 13 years ago with their Pneuma debut. They called their latest album Fossil Gardens their “most extreme album to date,” but “extremely varied” would be another apt description of it. Yes, it does get more black metally than the band have been in a while, but it’s still an unorthodox alchemy of stylistic influences, and is at least as worthy of the “prog” label as the “BM” one.
The songs are always strange maneuvers, more calculated to cause heads to spin than to bang, and they may cause some folks to become befuddled rather than bedazzled. But if you don’t think the songs still have hooks, you may just need to listen to them more than once. Yet there’s one song in particular that sunk its hooks in me right away, and that one is “Curse You, Entropia.” The lyrics of the song are also wonderful, and they connect to the general direction of the album’s inspiration, described as follows by the band’s label Agonia Records:
“Thematically, this is a positive album, since it is inspired by the charm of our cosmos and the scientific struggle to unlock its secrets and transcend the barriers of space and time”.
I wrote this about the song soon after hearing it the first time:
Shimmering crystalline synths and gentle acoustic picking introduce it, and the band then carry the acoustic melody forward in beguiling fashion, like an otherworldly waltz (and not only because the lyrics refer to gods “waltzing through the universe till the Milky Way goes stale”) — but it’s a waltz that begins to sound sinister and delirious.
Harsh vocals are dominant in this one, along with extravagant wails and screams, and it includes a phase when a warm, humming bass takes the lead role. Like the first single, it’s a sonic kaleidoscope that’s thoroughly engrossing and electrifying — and damned catchy too!
https://hailspiritnoir.com/fossil-gardens
https://agoniarecords.bandcamp.com/album/fossil-gardens
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063941775960
SEAR BLISS
It really was a coincidence that today’s installment of this list includes two bands from Hungary. However, it wasn’t a coincidence that I included Sear Bliss along with Hail Spirit Noir and Thy Catafalque today, because all three bands (as I opined at the outset) gave us takes on black metal last year that were out of the ordinary. In the case of Sear Bliss, it was a new album named Heavenly Down.
The song from the album that I’m now adding to this list is “Chasm,” which was first presented through a video that gave us good views of the band’s performance, interspersed with other interesting imagery. I wrote this about the song itself last June, and stand by it:
This track, like others on the new album, is a wonderful amalgam of sensations which collectively create an epic experience. It’s a visceral head-mover but arcs heavenward in majestic sweeping tones. The vocals of András Nagy savagely claw at your throat and whirring riffage creates moods of sinister peril, but Zoltán Pál‘s trombone arrives in a gripping display of solemn grandeur, joined by Nagy‘s reverent singing.
The music ebbs, revealing simmering chords and big timpanic booms, climbs again, and then concludes with rippling electronic keyboards that sound mysterious and beckoning.
https://searbliss.lnk.to/heavenlydown
https://www.facebook.com/searblissband
https://www.instagram.com/searbliss