OUR LIST OF 2024’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 18): THY CATAFALQUE, HAIL SPIRIT NOIR, SEAR BLISS

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2024  No Responses »
Jan 272025
 

(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. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: HAIL SPIRIT NOIR, WOLFHEART, EXECUTIONER’S MASK, LIGHTLORN, HELLSODOMY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jun 082024
 

Welcome to another Saturday roundup of new music and videos. Confronted again with the daunting task of choosing from among a vast array of new releases to check out, I defaulted this time to bands I already like, and that decision didn’t steer me wrong.

The music mainly consists of variants of death and black metal, but with some interesting twists along the way.

HAIL SPIRIT NOIR (Greece)

Whenever I think of Hail Spirit Noir I usually think of their 2012 debut album Pneuma, not because it’s their best one but because it was so different from everything else I was listening to at that time, and because so many of those songs got so quickly and firmly stuck in my head (I listened to it a lot).

Since then, they’ve followed their wandering muse in different and usually unpredictable directions. They now have a new album on the way, four years after Eden In Reverse and almost three years after Mannequins, and of course the upper-most question is: What have they gotten up to this time? Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: OBSCURA, DISENTOMB, HAIL SPIRIT NOIR, DIRTY SHIRT, EMPLOYED TO SERVE, GADGET

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Jul 022021
 

 

I’m scurrying. I was all ready to launch an album premiere and review, but the provider of the stream code seems to have been swallowed by the earth. So, to fill the gap I’ve quickly pulled together a bunch of new songs I encountered this morning, most of which come with entertaining videos. I’m pretending I’m a DJ and just inserting some very brief comments before each one, and adding some release info below the clips.

OBSCURA

The tech-death arms race shows no signs of diminishing, and, with manes and drapery blowing in the wind and fingers and limbs flying at blinding speed, Obscura rejoin the melee. Minds will be boggled…. Continue reading »

HAIL SPIRIT NOIR: “EDEN IN REVERSE”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Jun 162020
 

 

We are all well aware of beloved metal bands whose creative interests and impulses have led them to places very different from where they began. Sometimes, comparing starting and ending points can become jarring juxtapositions, even if directional signposts were evident along the way (at least for those who were paying attention). In other instances, change is more abrupt, perhaps the result of line-up revisions or of blatant commercial calculation.

Regardless of the explanation, change is risky, even when the results are superlative — and catastrophic when the outcomes are deplorable. But change is also the spice of life. It is also, in fact, the inherent underpinning of life. Without it, all of us would still be single-cell organisms swimming in salt seas. Because of it, we may someday swim among the stars.

Which brings us to Eden In Reverse, the brilliant new album by Hail Spirit Noir, and perhaps even an explanation of what the foregoing paragraphs have to do with the album. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: HAIL SPIRIT NOIR

 Interviews  No Responses »
Jun 152020
 

 

It took something special for our old pal KevinP to climb out of his cozy Florida confines and return to NCS, and in this case the motivation came from the impending release of a new album by the distinctive Greek band Hail Spirit Noir.

That album, Eden In Reverse, which is set for release by Agonia Records on Friday of this week (June 19th), reveals new directions in the band’s ever-evolving creativity, and Kevin explored them in this congenial interview of Haris (keyboards) and Theoharis (guitars), proceeding with questions on a track-by-track basis. Insights are revealed, wacky references are made, and we’ve included some music streams as well. Our own review of the album will follow soon. Continue reading »

HAIL SPIRIT NOIR: “THE FIRST APE ON NEW EARTH”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Apr 212020
 

 

We have a lot of things planned for today at our site, including an album review, a couple of premieres, and a gigantic round-up of new music, but I’m getting a slow start on readying any of those posts for publication. But then I saw that Hail Spirit Noir had revealed the first excerpt from their new album, and that solved the problem of how to begin the day without further delay.

We don’t usually feature only one new song in a post unless it’s a premiere, but our affection for this Greek band runs deep, as does curiosity about what this new album will sound like, given the fascinating shifts in style that have already occurred over the course of Pneuma (2012), Oi Magoi (2014), and Mayhem In Blue (2016). Of course, as the band’s first three albums have already proven, one song drawn in isolation from the rest of an HSN release doesn’t completely represent what the rest of the record will sound like, because the band have an adventurous streak in them.

But beyond what can be gleaned from the new song that debuted today (“The First Ape On New Earth“), we do have this accompanying statement by the band about the album, the title of which is Eden In Reverse: Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2016’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 5): GHOST, HAIL SPIRIT NOIR, ZEAL AND ARDOR

 Exceptions to the Rule, MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2016  6 Responses »
Jan 062017
 

 

As you can see, this is the fifth installment in our unfolding list of last year’s “Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs“. As you can also see (or will soon discover), not all of the songs in this installment are extreme, or even metal, and there’s a lot of clean singing as well. Feel free to harumph and harang in the Comments, but I could not get comfortable with the idea of looking back at the most infectious songs of last year without including all of these, and I also found a pleasing kind of twisted symmetry in combining them in a single post.

To see the other selections for the list so far, as well as an explanation of what criteria were used in making it, go here.

GHOST

From my perspective, it’s not worth debating whether Ghost are a metal band or not. There are good arguments to be made on both sides. What I think is beyond debate is the band’s ability to craft immensely catchy songs, and not the kind of cotton candy fluff that makes you sick to your stomach after the fifth or sixth time you’ve heard it, which seems to be true of a high percentage of catchy pop songs. Also, they continue to praise the Devil, and I give them horns up for that. Whether the praise is calculated or sincere is a subject we can debate on another day, or not at all. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: HAIL SPIRIT NOIR — “MAYHEM IN BLUE”

 Premieres  3 Responses »
Oct 262016
 

hail-spirit-noir-mayhem-in-blue

 

We are very fortune to be the bearer of wonderful gifts from Greece today — specifically, a stream of all six songs gathered together on the new album Mayhem In Blue by Hail Spirit Noir.

The band’s first two albums, Pneuma and Oi Magoi, were so good and so distinctive that it’s fair to say fan expectations for the new album are high — and they’re not going to be disappointed, because Mayhem In Blue is the band’s best work yet. Continue reading »

GET TO THE POINT: HAIL SPIRIT NOIR (THEO LYRATZAKIS)

 Interviews  5 Responses »
Oct 172016
 

hail-spirit-noir-2016

 

(In this new edition of KevinP’s short interview series, he talks with guitarist Theo Lyratzakis of the Greek band Hail Spirit Noir, whose new album Mayhem In Blue will be released by Dark Essence Records on October 28.)

K:   I think it’s pretty safe to say that most people are gonna view this album as easily the best of your career. As much as I loved both prior releases, compared to this new one, dare I say they sound “half-baked”, almost “disjointed”.

T:  Ha!  Well, that’s always good to hear!  Thank you kindly.  Knowing you are a fan, it means a lot.  We obviously wanted Mayhem In Blue to be our best album to date.  It’s the difficult third album and a lot of work has been put into it.  Not that either Pneuma or Oi Magoi disappointed us in any way but this is where we are now.  And we need to express ourselves as keenly and accurately as possible.  So you know, thanks. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HAIL SPIRIT NOIR — “I MEAN YOU HARM”

 Premieres  7 Responses »
Oct 042016
 

hail-spirit-noir-mayhem-in-blue

 

The infernally creative music of Hail Spirit Noir is very hard to pin down, which is a part of the band’s multifarious charms. Anyone who has delved into the wonders of their first two albums, Pneuma and Oi Magoi, are well aware that HSN march (and scamper) to the beat of their own drummer. You might fumble around with combinations of words that include “black metal”, “psychedelic”, “progressive”, “occult”, and “retro” in an attempt to describe the sonic potions they have brewed, but an all-encompassing description remains elusive. There is a dark animating spirit and an ingenious intelligence behind the songs, but no two of them sound quite alike.

And so, apart from the impressive and distinctive quality of those first two albums, one big reason to be eager for their new album Mayhem In Blue is the excitement of an unpredictable new discovery. We’re very happy to pull back the curtain on the new album — albeit only far enough to provide a tantalizing glimpse — by providing the premiere of its first single, a song called “I Mean You Harm“.

It’s not a very friendly song title, and the music doesn’t greet you with a warm embrace either. It includes some of the distinctive, recognizable elements of Hail Spirit Noir’s previous releases, but it’s also more aggressive and malicious than what you may be expecting. But of course, confounding expectations is obviously a big part of the fun that Hail Spirit Noir find in making music. Continue reading »

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