INFIDEL ART

Infidel Art is the second studio album from Japanese experimental extreme metal act Sigh. Sigh´s debut album Scorn Defeat ( 1993) was a strange mix of old school eighties euro thrash metal like Kreator, Celtic Frost, Destruction and Sodom and a few symphonic elements. I wasn ´t too impressed with the primitive outcome which was to be frank a bit laughable at times ( at least I had a hard time taking it serious). Infidel Art continues down the same path when we´re talking general sound and style but the quality of the songs is much higher than on Scorn Defeat and therefore this album does impress me slightly more.

The metal parts on the album are still very primitive old school eighties euro thrash ( Several times I´m reminded of Endless Pain by Kreator) and pretty average at that but what is great about the songs are the many classical symphonic parts which are created by piano and keyboards/ synths. Sometimes those parts are really beautiful and well composed as well. With titles like Suicidogenic and The Zombie Terror it´s not hard to imagine which kind of lyrical themes Sigh has worked on for Infidel Art. There´s also a slight horror element in some of the keyboard parts on the album. There´s even some symphonic rock parts on the album like the ending of Desolation. The vocals on the album is mostly black metal rasps or rather rough old school thrash metal vocals. I´ve read some places that Sigh is black metal which is true to some extent but I think it´s important to note that they have more in common with the earl/ mid eighties euro thrash metal style than actual black metal. At least on this release. They usually don´t play very fast either. No blast beats on this album ( not that you can´t play black metal without them of course). I´ve seen Sigh compared to both Mayhem and Darkthrone which I have a hard time hearing.

The musicianship has become better since the debut but I still miss some bite and interesting riffs.

The production is allright. The metal parts don´t always sound too good but the keyboards and synths sound great IMO.

Infidel Art is a hard album to rate as it has many great parts but also feature some pretty average metal riffing that brings the album down a bit. I still feel that it´s a highly inventive album though and will stretch and give Infidel Art 3 stars. It´s not a personal favorite but still a very interesting album.