Sigh - Graveward

Artist: Sigh
Album: Graveward
Release date: April 13, 2015
Label: Candlelight Records
Genre: Weird-ass black metal. Wouldn't call it avant-garde though.








WHAT THIS IS ABOUT
Sigh are a Japanese band. And you've got to love the way Japanese musicians put three or four completely unrelated Western styles in a giant blender and drink the result with glee in their eyes. Formally they do play black metal, but they make heavy use of synths and vocoders and they have a saxophonist. The result is surprising - not particularly heavy, with a lot of guitar work, guest vocalists and symphonic ideas thrown here and there. Sigh have this thing where they name their releseas to form the band's name, so this starts with G, the previous one was In Somniphobia and the next one will most likely begin with H (they've done it twice already).

WHAT IT DOES RIGHT
If you think Devin Townsend is crazy, wait till you hear The Tombfiller. It's at least as insane as Ziltoid and with three times the stylistic variations. The whole record has a strong symphonic vibe, which combined with the occasional clean vocals (courtesy of Dr. Mikannibal, who as the name suggests is a girl) gives a bit of a Dimmu-Borgir-when-they-were-good vibe. Of course, then you have tracks such as The Molesters of My Soul which flaunts crunching beats in the vein of Meshuggah and vocoder creativity on par with Kanye's (check The Message for another taste of that). Why is there a tzigan violin part in Out of the Grave? I have no clue, but it sounds great. Every keyboard part is amazing and mind-boggling, and the John Zorn-ian sax doesn't hurt either. There's power metal-style guitar work, too.

WHAT IT DOES WRONG
Absolutely nothing. Disagree, and you're a heretic.

VERDICT
One of the most entertaining releases of the year. There's about a thousand different things going on at the same time, and it still sounds like black metal. There is no excuse for not listening to this album. Go!