SIGH
Japanese Avant-garde nutters Sigh are a breath of fresh air. ‘In Somniphobia’ has everything from power-metal pantomime in all its bare-chested extravagance, discomfiting ambient sounds, symphonic orchestration, chaotic jazz/fusion sax, acid-fused psychedelia, thrash, blues, movie soundtracks, and just about every genre of music you can point to. Where you’d think that such a complex, elaborate, and rollercoaster array of styles slapped together would collapse under the weight of their own eccentricity, it never once does. Each song requires your attention, if only to keep up with the ever-mutating aesthetic and to thoroughly absorb the opulent grandeur. Sigh don’t belong solely to metal, they have transcended the confines of the genre many times over. Remove the black metal vocals and what’s left is musicianship and lunatic virtuosity. In fact, were they absent, the black metal vocals wouldn’t be missed and nor would the album suffer. The tracks are strong enough to be decorated with more elaborate vocal performances to compliment the contrived lunacy. Even if you consider ‘In Somniphobia’ to be little more than style without substance, it is still undeniably an achievement to make it work like it does. Sleep, those little slices of death; how we loathe them. The fear of being cradled in the arms of Morpheus never sounded so alluring.
LABEL:
FORMAT:
Candlelight Records
Album
IN SOMNIPHOBIA
Review by Jason Guest
RUNNING TIME:
76:29
RELEASE DATE:
12th March 2012
TRACK LISTING
1) Purgatorium
2) The Transfiguration Fear
3) Opening Theme: Lucid Nightmare
4) Somniphobia
5) L'excommunication à Minuit
6) Amnesia
7) Far Beneath the In-Between
8) Amongst the Phantoms of Abandoned Tumbrils
9) Ending Theme: Continuum
10) Fall to the Thrall
11) Equale - I) Prelude; II) Fugato; III) Coda
2) The Transfiguration Fear
3) Opening Theme: Lucid Nightmare
4) Somniphobia
5) L'excommunication à Minuit
6) Amnesia
7) Far Beneath the In-Between
8) Amongst the Phantoms of Abandoned Tumbrils
9) Ending Theme: Continuum
10) Fall to the Thrall
11) Equale - I) Prelude; II) Fugato; III) Coda
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:
Japan
"...everything from power-metal pantomime in all its bare-chested extravagance, discomfiting ambient sounds, symphonic orchestration, chaotic jazz/fusion sax, acid-fused psychedelia, thrash, blues, movie soundtracks, and just about every genre of music you can point to."
