Review Summary: In which Sunnyvale hails the spirit noir
Greece’s Hail Spirit Noir have always found themselves on the boundary-pushing side of the black metal genre. And, with the possible exception of their one-off 2021 dip into synthwave (
Mannequins), they’ve consistently managed to deliver via weird and wonderful LPs. But I’m not sure any of their releases to date are quite as singularly compelling as
Fossil Gardens.
This album reminds me a bit of Dodheimsgard’s exceptional 2023 effort,
Black Medium Current in spirit, even if the experimentation here remains a bit less far-flung. Over seven songs, Hail Spirit Noir have managed to merge their sometimes ritualistic and sometimes space-y leanings into a sense of atmosphere which elevates the record beyond simply being some pretty sweet quirky black (ish) metal. Opener “Starfront Promenade” is illustrative of the album’s success - in under five minutes, incorporating a moody ambient intro, a sinister march segment, and a final run which approximates more conventional black metal into a single song that actually makes a lot of sense. The band’s comparative brevity, while still maintaining a sense of grandeur, is a constant throughout
Fossil Gardens, with the exception of ten-minute “The Road To Awe”, which is a quite satisfying epic in its own right. Even if the album seems like it should be behemoth, powering along behind the forcefully triumphant grooves of tracks like “The Temple Of Curved Space” or the closing title track, the album’s runtime is a delightfully adventurous forty-three minutes.
It probably sounds like I’m saying
Fossil Gardens’ biggest strength is that it’s a fairly short album - not exactly an overwhelming selling point, even if plenty of bands in this arena could learn a thing or two from Hail Spirit Noir’s latest venture. But that’s not my point, exactly. It’s more that these Hellenes have managed to romp from idea to idea with aplomb, with nary a dull moment, and still have the listener back home for dinner. In the end, that’s what makes
Fossil Gardens so fresh - it doesn’t seem like an academic exercise dedicated to infusing cool ideas into a metal album, but rather simply a very fun listen with very little fluff which also happens to be pretty damn creative while maintaining a rock-solid consistent vibe throughout the twists and turns. Pretty, pretty good.
