Hail Spirit Noir play a trippy mix of psychedelic rock and progressive black metal, with a pinch of avant-garde. Their debut record, Pneuma, was a crazy house filled with horror atmosphere, dark humor, and all kinds of madness. Oi Magoi, their second offer, saw the band taking progressive elements of their music, infusing them with psychedelic songwriting, with fewer black metal elements but with the same amount of songwriting madness. Now, we got their latest record dubbed Mayhem in Blue, on which the band shows they are always evolving, becoming better musicians and better songwriters at the same time. The album features more psychedelic and progressive elements than the first two albums, without sacrificing their black metal origins.
Mayhem in Blue is very tight; all songs have their own identity while at the same time the same groove is kept throughout the record. Dark humor infused with horror elements is still present but in smaller dosages. This time, the band sounds like they recorded the album while in some satanic cabaret filled with lost souls of misanthropic philosophers that still have a solid sense of humor, albeit dark one. The whole record has a certain theatric feel to it, mostly because heavy use of psychedelic synthesizers that have that twisted, oddly shaped vibe to them.
The best thing about Mayhem in Blue is that all elements finally clicked together. On previous albums, the band kept the same mix of genres, but different elements felt somewhat disjointed, not like a whole but like a whole crudely stitched together with various components, all having their borders visible if looking carefully. On Mayhem in Blue, Hail Spirit Noir finally managed to infuse their quite different musical influences perfectly. The music finally flows, finally feels like a new entity, born effortlessly from the minds of the band’s members. This time, when songs take a different turn, it comes naturally, as a planned progression, not as a sharp 180-degree turn. This evolution is best heard in the epic Lost in Satan’s Charms, a ten-minute juggernaut that shows how the band matured, how they finally made an epic song that won’t feel like a chore to listen to as it approaches the end.
The lack of a natural flow was the problem on the first two albums. Black, progressive and psychedelic elements were mixed without a higher plan, best noticed in their previous epic, ten-minute long compositions (Into the Gates of Time, The Mermaid) that felt unnaturally stretched and quite disjointed at times. Mayhem in Blue is filled with unique melodies; every song has its own signature noticed right away. Wickedly catchy synthesizers in I Mean You Harm, an opera-like atmosphere of Lost In Satan’s Charms, or a massive dose of dark humor, along with a cheeky chorus found in The Cannibal Tribe Came from the Sea (Cannibals, Cannibals, Human Animals), or a midnight mist-like atmosphere of How to Fly in Blackness. Mayhem in Blue presents a fully matured Hail Spirit Noir that finally managed to mix all of their crazy personalities into one dark, genius entity.
