EDEN IN REVERSE

Spacey, weird, and genuinely novel are all fitting adjectives for this record. Sadly, entertaining or enjoyable are not among them. The music on Eden in Reverse is characterized by off-beat wall of sound chords often accompanied by psyched-out lead Moog synthesizer passages. The vocal duties are shared between guitarist Theoharis Liratzakis and several guest musicians. One of the vocalists' style, presumably Theoharis, is reminiscent of Jonas Renske of Katatonia while the others are a mix of Peter Gabriel and Brann Dailor of Mastodon. On paper, this sounds like a recipe for success. In practice, the relentlessness of the dissonant chords and wall of sound production simply wore me down. The silver lining was the relatively brisk run-time of 42 minutes and 48 seconds.

A fellow progressive metal reviewer on the Prog Archives, Silly Puppy, has written extensively in his reviews about the rise of "Psychedelic Metal" in the past decade, a movement of which Hail Spirit Noir is a part. Unfortunately for this band, this invited me to make some very unflattering comparisons to another psychedelic metal record released this year, Oranssi Pazuzu's Mestarin Kynsi. While Mestarin Kynsi was marred a bit by misplaced black metal vocals, it contextualized its "weirdness" by putting together a masterclass in generating and releasing tension in the songs. Eden in Reverse is just all weird all the time with no respite. I for one will not be returning to this record or this band for quite some time.