SIGH — In Somniphobia (review)

SIGH — In Somniphobia album cover Album · 2012 · Avant-garde Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
UMUR
"In Somniphobia" is the 9th full-length studio album by Japanese avant garde/progressive extreme metal act Sigh. The album was released through Candlelight Records in March 2012.

The music on "In Somniphobia" offers up pretty much what you expect from a Sigh album. The unexpected! The band have long journeyed the outer limits of avant garde/progressive extreme metal and listening to "In Somniphobia" it quickly becomes apparant that the adventurous journey is far from over. These guys are still so far out in space that it´s doubtful they´ll ever return to planet earth. While the basis in the music is as always a raw type blackened thrash/heavy metal, that´s only the bottom of a multilayered soundscape pyramid. Classical music, spaghetti western- and B-horror movie soundtrack music, jazz, blues, progressive rock, avant garde and all sorts of other influences can be heard throughout the album.

As an example take the track "The Transfiguration Fear". How the hell the band manage to incorporate a spaghetti western theme, female choirs, handclaps, a saxophone solo, galloping heavy metal rythms, raspy black metal type vocals and all sorts of other oddities to the track and make it sound like the easiest and most seamless thing in the world is beyond me and just one of the things on this album that proves how greatly skilled Sigh are as composers. And that is just one track out of 11. I´ll stop here but you get the picture on how eclectic the music is.

The musicianship is generally on a very high level and the sound production is well sounding and suits the music perfectly. So "In Somniphobia" is through and through a quality release and fans of avant garde/progressive extreme metal should find lots to like here. A 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.
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J-Man wrote:
more than 2 years ago
I agree. This album really is something special!

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