UMUR "Mannequins" is the fifth full-length studio album by Greek progressive metal act Hail Spirit Noir. The album was released through Agonia Records in September 2021. It´s the successor to "Eden in Reverse" from 2020. "Mannequins" is an experimental release from Hail Spirit Noir as it only features half the sextet lineup who recorded "Eden in Reverse". Not because the other half of the lineup has quit Hail Spirit Noir, but because keyboardists Haris and Sakis Bandis, and lead vocalist Cons Marg have recorded "Mannequins" as a trio using only keyboards/synths and vocals.

So "Mannequins" features no regular rock instrumentation and no ties to the band´s black metal past or even their more recent psychedelic/progressive/space rock output. The band have stated in interviews that this is probably a one-off experimental release, and that they´ll most likely return to more familiar territories on the next album release (which they did with "Fossil Gardens" from June 2024). The idea to release a synthwave release was probably born during the COVID-19 lockdown, and it makes sense that this sort of release could be conceived under such circumstances.

The band had a self-made 80s influenced slasher/horror story script in mind while writing the music featured on "Mannequins" and it´s to be listened to as a soundtrack album to that sort of movie. Keeping in mind that it´s the premise of the music, Hail Spirit Noir succeed very well in that mission. This is John Carpenter and Goblin type synth horror music, which is predominantly instrumental. The title track and the synth disco beat track "Enter Disco Inferno" feature vocals though, and both are among the highlights of the album. The remaining tracks are great too with simple eerie synth melodies and programmed drum beats. Although not completely similar it´s interesting to note that Ulver released their horror movie themed synthwave album "Scary Muzak" just a month after "Mannequins" came out. It may just be a coincidence, but maybe it´s a contemporary trend.

"Mannequins" is a well produced release and while it´s sometimes almost a bit too simple and one-dimensional, it´s still a well-made, well performed, and interesting release. At least Hail spirit Noir hit all the right notes to trigger my imagination in terms of visioning how the imaginary movie scenes play out during the various tracks, and I guess when that´s possible the band have done something right. This may not be a release for the "regular" fans of Hail Spirit Noir, but to those who enjoy horror movie synthwave soundtrack music, this one is definitely worth a listen. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

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!

UMUR "Eden in Reverse" is the 4th full-length studio album by Greek progressive metal act Hail Spirit Noir. The album was released through Agonia Records in June 2020. It´s the successor to "Mayhem In Blue" from 2016 and features quite a few lineup changes since the predecessor as Hail Spirit Noir have gone from a trio lineup to a sextet.

While the three preceding releases weren´t exactly primitive and simple, the new sextet lineup do create an even more massive and more busy soundscape. Hard (and more mellow) rocking guitars, bass, and drums, loads of vintage synths/keyboards/organ, and well performed clean vocals, harmonies and choirs. This is 60s/70s influenced heavy progressive rock with a strong psychadelic touch. The contemporary artist which comes closest to the sound on "Eden in Reverse" is probably Opeth and their 70s hard rock infused progressive rock sound, but Hail Spirit Noir have a more driving, repetitive rhytmic pulse (Krautrock/space rock influenced). The latter influence is especially heard on the 10:20 minutes long closing track "Automata 1980", but the hard rocking repetitive rhythmic playing is there on most tracks.

Hail Spirit Noir come from a black metal background, but while the three preceding releases did feature black metal elements, they weren´t really black metal. It was just an element of their sound. That element is now almost completely gone from their music, and "Eden in Reverse" does not feature much more than 1 minute of black metal influenced sounds. A raw black metal styled scream at the end of "Alien Lip Reading", and a few sections with tremolo picked distorted guitars and some faster-paced drumming are about it. The clean vocals are performed in a laid-back almost sedated fashion. Very pleasant on the ears, but maybe slightly too one-dimensional in the end. On the other hand the vocals suit the atmosphere of the instrumental part of the music perfectly.

"Eden in Reverse" features an organic and detailed sound production, which suits the material perfectly, and upon conclusion it´s another strong album release by Hail Spirit Noir. They´ve moved forward and have added new elements to their sound and they´ve removed other elements, but ultimately they still sound unmistakably like themselves. A 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.

Luis_de_Sousa 2020 has been an inordinate year, with all sorts of health, economic and political mayhem raging around the planet. The music world, however, has not yet been permeable to such ordeals. After a largely mild 2019, this year has been prolific in great music, in most cases by unexpectedly good comebacks (the return of CIRITH UNGOL being the most spectacular, 29 years after their last studio recording). Among these remarkable 2020 comebacks is EDEN IN REVERSE by HAIL SPIRIT NOIR.

The Greek trio had built a following in the earlier part of the decade with a sweep of three Black Metal albums that always meandered different soundscapes. Loved by Metal fans and respected in the Progressive universe, they largely trailed a path of their own. A long hiatus ensued after 2016, and in 2020 the band finally broke radio silence with EDEN IN REVERSE.

During this interregnum the band completely transfigured their sound, all but abandoning their Black Metal roots. EDEN IN REVERSE is a complete change of course, but in many different directions. Vocals now lean into Gothic territory, synthesisers went back in time and space to 1970s Germany, whereas guitars riffs acquired a psychedelic dimension that further expands the strength of their sound.

This is still pretty much Heavy Metal music, but is also so much more than that. EDEN IN REVERSE revisits important elements of 1970s Space and Electronic, but blends it brilliantly with modern Metal. There are great introspective moments, more than inspired on TANGERINE DREAM, followed by blasts of energy with heavy guitar playing. Aesthetically, each successive track slowly builds a peculiar kind of tension, mysterious, intriguing, almost like a thriller in space. The end result is remarkably refreshing, with a clear element of innovation (especially in the Metal universe). HAIL SPIRIT NOIR have definitely created a space of their own in rock music.

And it all comes packaged in a concise record, delivering a powerful watershed of sound that elegantly avoids tiring the listener. There are no weak moments, just up and downs in a dense plot. Pressing play is opening the gate to a wonderful journey. I hope HAIL SPIRIT NOIR continues exploring this new niche they created, but if history serves as template, they are unlikely to remain in the same place for long.

This is the second record in 2020 I feel to deserve the 5 stars. Be it for Metal or Progressive fans, this is a very special album.