Over the course of 17 years and 8 releases, Sigh has established themselves as one of the weirdest and most exciting extreme metal bands around. While debuting with the mostly straight forward black metal of Scorn Defeat on Euronymos’s Deathlike Silence Productions, Sigh has dabbled increasingly with the weird, the Avante garde and the genuinely fucked up.  2001s Imaginary Sonicscapes dabbled in everything from jazz to reggae to disco while still being extreme metal and is one of my all time favourite albums. The follow up Gallows Gallery was a stripped down and considerably more extreme release that saw the band stick to a black thrash path that was pretty tame in comparison to the grandiosity of Imaginary Sonicscapes.

It’s 2007 and the band has changed labels yet again and released their latest album titled Hangman’s Hymn. The premise of the album is simple enough. Take your raw 80s German thrash, think early Destruction and Sodom’s In The Sign Of Evil ep and mix it with European classical music from the romantic period. Now that’s pretty frightening and as a concept should have fallen down in a tangled heap of unlistenable songs. Somehow though, Sigh has made the disparate influences work and released what is for me one of the better albums of the year. 

Right from the opening few seconds of the album, Sigh come at you with all guns blazing. The classical elements are seamlessly molded into the song structure and work superbly enhancing the aggressive black thrash approach of opener Introitus/Kyrie and giving the song a frenetic almost out of control feel before going into a classical symphonic piece almost effortlessly with only Mirai’s creepy laugh reminding you that it’s still the same band. In fact, that creepy King Diamond laugh is repeated through the album and works in enhancing the atmosphere of this album. Inked In Blood has a classic heavy metal feel to it while still exploring the symphonic classical music styling and is another terrific song. Me-Devil has a kickass thrash riff that starts things off before the songs melds the classical and metal to end superbly. Dies Irae/ The Master Malice starts with some Latin chants and keyboards before settling down into a mid paced death metal rumble that brings to mind Celtic Frost’s To Megatherion.  Also the choir used in the song gives it a real epic feel before that same creepy laugh ends proceedings.

The band doesn’t put a foot wrong on Hangman’s Hymn. Everything that they try out from the clean sung fist in the air parts of In Devil’s Arms to the chaotic lead guitar playing on every song that seems like a tribute to German thrash, the frequent vocal nods to King Diamond and the use of classical music all work. The songs are all reasonably short with the longest song clocking in at just over 6 minutes and yet there’s a lot happening on every one of these songs. Repeat listening is a must to fully appreciate Hangman’s Hymn and the complexity of sound that the band has managed to achieve.

Sigh has outdone themselves here. There isn’t a single ordinary song on this album and the way in which the band has used classical music to enhance the impact of these songs is unbelievable. The symphonic classical arrangements are in fact used not merely as embellishment but to serve as a counterpoint to the heavy metal. Together, the black thrash attack and the symphonic music create songs that should be at cross purposes but instead sound perfect. Each element enhancing the effect of the other till it all sounds quite epic and absolutely beautiful. It also sounds like the band has been paying close attention to King Diamond’s classic Them, in terms of creating the creepy atmosphere that pervades the album.

Hangman’s Hymn is without a doubt Sigh’s finest hour. The band experiment fearlessly and sound quite unlike anything that’s come before. The album takes a few listens to fully appreciate and while symphonic black thrash may not sound too appealing, Sigh has delivered an album for the ages here. Absolutely essential and a definite contender for album of the year.

Label – The End Records
Year Of Release – 2007