UMUR "Fossil Gardens" is the sixth full-length studio album by Greek progressive metal act Hail Spirit Noir. The album was released through Agonia Records in June 2024. It´s the successor to "Mannequins" from September 2021 and although Hail Spirit Noir haven´t returned in the sextet lineup who recorded their fourth full-length studio album "Eden in Reverse" (2020), they have returned in rock group format with drums, guitars, bass, keyboards/synths, and vocals. The reason for mentioning this is that "Mannequins" was an experimental synthwave release featuring only the (at the time) two keyboardists of the group and lead vocalist Cons Marg.

"Mannequins" was always meant to be a one-off experiment, and "Fossil Gardens" sees Hail Spirit Noir returning to their psychedelic/progressive black metal roots. We do get a little bit of "Mannequins'" sound and melodies as opening track "Starfront Promenade" features select melodic themes from the "Mannequins" title track. It´s pretty interesting to hear what was originally a synth pop track transformed into a progressive black metal song, but it says a lot about the eclectic and adventurous nature of Hail Spirit Noir.

While "Starfront Promenade" a bit deceivingly opens "Fossil Gardens" with a mellow melancholic clean vocal section, and there are several other moments on the album which belong in psychedelic/progressive rock/metal territory, "Fossil Gardens" is actually one of the harder edged and most black metal leaning albums yet from Hail Spirit Noir. At least when they play harder edged sections. There´s bite and black metal snarling and aggression (and even blast beat sections) here which are sharper and more caustic/chaotic sounding than what we´ve normally been treated to on the preceding releases from the band. The atmosphere is often epic in scope (almost symphonic black metal styled at times), but just as soon turns melancholic or psychedelic. The many tremolo picked melancholic guitar melodies are just gorgeous and feel massive, leaving an intense impact on the listener.

When your ears get adjusted to this more extreme black metal style, "Fossil Gardens" is still unmistakably the sound of Hail Spirit Noir (...and it´s not that extreme), and it´s an incredibly well crafted release. The sound production is top notch, the performances showcase high level musicianship on all posts, and the songwriting is eclectic, adventurous, and intriguing. It´s the kind of the album you can listen to many times and find new details everytime. If they weren´t already one of the leaders of progressive/psychedelic black metal, this album would surely lift them to that status. A 4.5 star (90%) rating is deserved.

siLLy puPPy HAIL SPIRIT NOIR is a band that never fails to surprise you where it’s going next. These Greek avant-gardeners have consistently thrown curve balls with each and every release beginning with their psychedelically infused black metal debut “Pneuma” back in 2012. It’s only been a mere 12 years since the band made its splash on the world of experimental metal and has since released a total of six albums now that the latest FOSSIL GARDENS has emerged in the summer of 2024. Somehow i totally missed the 2021 “Mannequins” but upon exploration it seems to be one of those bonus albums for true fans that actually care about how a metal band can construct a non-metal electronic album. Personally i find these albums to be hit and miss but occasional can offer some insight into the band’s overall thought process..

A divisive band to say the least HAIL SPIRIT NOIR is either one of those bands that clicks with you or on the contrary totally rubs you the wrong way. As with most intrepid musical explorers that break all the rules and introduce strange chimeras to an established genre that many have settled on a comfort zone within, this band fearlessly steers its craft into strange musical worlds that have hitherto never been aurally integrated into the egregore of the greater black metal fanbase. Nevertheless HAIL SPIRIT NOIR sallies forth into the great unknown and delivers another slice of progressive black metal with a heavy emphasis on symphonic touches. While “Eden In Reverse” eccentrically and eclectically delved into the farthest reaches of space rock infused progressive rock that skimped a bit on the metal, FOSSIL GARDENS makes a retrograde into its roots.

On FOSSIL GARDENS the team has once again reinstated the black metal aspects and given the fans what drew them to its unusual style in the first place albeit encased in a psychedelic haze within a proggy framework. Sounding more like the weirdest experiments of Dodheimsgard than Darkthrone, the black metal returns but in a sort of musical truce kinda way. The album surprisingly starts of with clean vocals and spacey synthesizer ambience which suggests HAIL SPIRIT NOIR has totally gone Ulver on us and abandoned all notions of being a metal band but after a sensual baritone tribute to classic Dead Can Dance, HAIL SPIRIT NOIR unleashes its pent up black metal sensibilities and offers a blastbeat driven and tremolo guitar rampage complete with raspy vocal rage however the atmosphere remains thick and frigid and rather dominant but nevertheless, black metal HAIL SPIRIT NOIR has arisen like a phoenix form the ashes.

The rest of the album follows suit however the black metal isn’t as angsty as the typical second waver. This album finds the metal more in chord stomping mode for much of the time along with those jangly dissonant strumming sessions joining in for contrast’s sake. Guitar sweeps place this squarely into the melodic black metal camp with the eerie ambient backdrops never renouncing their presence for a second. Raspy tirades trade off with haunting clean vocal excursions into surreal spacey soundscapes that keeps the band firmly in the black space metal camp. This is progressive metal after all with the black metal a mere ingredient in the larger picture, a bane to black metal purists while avant-garde experimentalists will rejoice at the band’s audacity to meander through labyrinthine passages that include as much dreamy ambient pop motifs as it does adrenaline outbursts of black metal fury.

For many this one will elude them as it is by no means a conventional album. While slightly less abstract and freakishly alienating as “Eden In Reverse,” FOSSIL GARDENS nevertheless is no return to the black’n’roll bouncy grooves of “Oi Magoi” or “Mayhem In Blue” but rather delivers a veritable dip into progressive rock territory that just happens to incorporate black metal as the evil step-sister that keeps it from falling into complete ambient space rock terrain. As far removed though as FOSSIL GARDENS is from classic “normal” black metal, the contrasts make this a dynamic listening experience much like the world of Ihsahn, Enslaved or other formerly black metal dominated acts that now have successfully hybridized their caustic angst with a more pacifying structured layout that offers a true musical majesty behind all the weirdness. While i prefer the previous “Eden In Reverse,” i have to say that FOSSIL GARDENS doesn’t disappoint at all and rubs me in the right way which makes my tail wag in delight. In other words, NOT what i was expecting but in a good way!