Hypomanie - Calm Down, You Weren't Set on Fire

The Netherlands has become a hotbed of boundary-pushing, underground black metal in recent years, with bands like Urfaust, Gnaw Their Tongues and Dodecahedron contributing great efforts to furthering the genre. Hypomanie are one of the lesser bands on the scene, but they’re also participants in the very new international niche of metalgazing. The more even divisions of shoegaze and black metal heard on early Hypomanie releases has given way to an instrumental form of shoegaze/post rock with only very minimal metal influences. If this wasn’t clear on last year’s A City in Mono (which it was), it will surely be on this year’s awkwardly titled Calm Down, You Weren’t Set on Fire. Black metal percussion and some slightly extreme forms of guitar distortion remained on 2011’s record. This new record strips away the distortion (which created a black metal atmosphere) and almost all of the metal drumming, with only two tracks featuring rather chilled-sounding blast beats. Even and generic portions of post rock and shoegaze are the main course. This all but exactly equals a complete border crossing of genres for Hypomanie.

I can see why Hypomanie traded off the black metal for a more straight up shoegaze approach. The single member of the band, S, is simply better at making arty-farty trend rock (which is sometimes good despite my derogatory classification). There’s no question that on the fronts of technicality and song-writing, Hypomanie’s last two releases are a vast improvement in terms of quality. But, to put it bluntly, they’re boring. S has not taken into consideration the interest of his earlier work caused by the as yet not fully explored territory of this particular subgenre fusion. In the end, all this comes off as is a lesser version of Godspeed, Mogwai, or even Isis. As a post rock record, it’s pretty good. The textures are really very nice and the song writing has moments of excellence. The only complaint I would make here is that it’s a little static, sounding a little too similar to itself over the duration of the album.

In short: I’m frankly disappointed with the musical direction this band has taken. If Calm Down had been released ten years ago, it would be an instant classic. But the times are changing fast and unfortunately this now sounds regurgitated. Sehnsucht, although made with little finesse, remains Hypomanie’s most important and interesting album, despite the actual music on Calm Down being better.

Standout tracks: “Lullaby for Ian”, “Pale Blue”

Score: 6.0

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Year of No Light & Altar of Plagues Split

Here we are given a ten-minute song from France’s Year of No Light, a post-sludge/doom/whatever sextet, and a sixteen-minute song from Ireland’s Altar of Plagues, a band who has been getting a lot of acclaim recently for their post-sludge black metal fusion, so we know before listening that this is going to be far from traditional. From the back catalogues of these bands, I expected Year of No Light to be enjoyable yet unremarkable, and Altar of Plagues to bear the stamp of excellence. I turned out to be almost correct.

Year of No Light’s Møn is an instrumental piece of emotional sludge, strong melodies layered in rich sounds. A slow yet decisive track that builds up some fire toward the end, this song is like all of YoNL’s work in that Isis, Neurosis and Jesu can all be heard in it. However, the melody is simply rockin’ – slow, serious, but still grooving. Very cool, and rich effects too. I would have to say that this is one their best tunes, and that the band has been steadily improving their style over the years. Dropping the vocals permanently I think was a good idea, as their music is much less progressive than that of Isis or Neurosis, and the lack of vocals makes it’s trudging pace quite relaxing. If this band continues to work at their style they could make some great music.

Altar of Plagues are a great new rock band by any measure. Excellent song-writing and atmospheric black metal epics imbued with a sludgy heaviness are their trademark. Light Through a Tomb takes a slightly different formula, offering up a strong narrative structure. The song starts with a 7 minute blissful post-rock swelling, before distortion hits, and another four minutes of ominous chords before raging black metal splits the song open. This contrast is obviously a symbol of destruction and descent. A mere two minutes of chaos ensue before it boils abruptly down to a cold drone that peters out into nothing. This song structure places emphasis on close-listening in order to truly appreciate the different and relative parts, and it makes the actual BM all the more powerful and frightening for having only a short glimpse of it, as if it were some night-time horror that always left the majority of its form hidden.

In short: Two wins from the post-metal scene from me with this release.

Standout tracks: Both

Score: 8.5

Lunar Aurora - Hoagascht

I sense there will be quite a few people hating on this album, and generally I loathe those people. I appreciate staying trve to a style and cvltivating strict dark arts, but that doesn’t mean I don’t also appreciate it when a band has the balls to do something different, to rock out the way they have the urge to, which is what we see happen gloriously here on Lunar Aurora’s Hoagascht. Gone is the straight up and down epic black metal LA used to play, you can pretty much tell when the first song Im Gartn introduces itself with an obscure synthline, a sound like fairies playing in the distance, lackadaisical and unreal. If you couldn’t tell by that, you know for sure when the alternative/indie rock riff hits next. In the second song we are confronted with a triumphant tremolo black metal riff that is laden with drums that could’ve been found on a Marvin Gaye record. And by the time you reach this point of the album, you’ll probably know if you love it or hate it.

Let’s analyze. Production is rich, more of a shoegaze fuzz to it than previous LA. Guitars play a goth rock-black metal fusion. The drums in general are slow and simple, rhythmic and groovy, only occasionally breaking into a double-kick gallop for variation and emphasis. All of the blast beats have been thrown in the bin, and gone is the speed in general; this is not a fast album. LA have previously used some interesting atmospheric synthesizers, but certainly never anything as stylistically daring as this. These synths exude a kind of dreamy euphoria, an indefinable state of bliss or mystery. They are not chilling, creepy or cold, and nor do they sound like someone blowing spit into a sensitive microphone. If anything one might call them ‘spacy’ or ‘trippy’, the way the hover fleetingly around the riffs. Vocals are rasped, but contain less fury than before and integrate themselves with the music more. Actually, the whole band is very tight, with a nice and evenly meshed sound.

So, let’s cast our black metal purists (and purisms) aside right now and admit what must be admitted, namely that Hoagascht rocks, and is going to succeed in rocking the worlds of many receptive individuals the world over. This is an incredibly atmospheric album with a very clear identity that can be listened to in moments of bliss or excitement or even melancholy.

In summary: Goth/alternative rock-cum-black metal with space age synth vibes sounds like a risky mix, but Hoagascht is just its own thing and I would simply recommend it to anyone who likes rockin’ tracks. Another fantastic album released this year.

Standout tracks: Nachteule, Haabergoass

Score: 9.0