By album number twelve most fans of Sigh should be well aware that taking anything for granted is a foolish folly. I was well aware that even a week’s intensive listening here was not going to do more than scratch the surface and whilst it would be an enjoyable experience it would not be one that didn’t bamboozle the senses and then some. Even as I sit down and throw the Japanese titles into various translation engines I am met with both Scorn and Defeat seeing them spat back out without anything in the way of illumination. Writer’s
hate relying on press blurb but sometimes it is necessary and at least we are told that the album title has various meaning but we should look at the ‘four seasons’ and ‘time to die’ as a guideline and the cherry blossoms on the eye-catching album artwork define spring as part of the journey through life. We are as usual in the musical sense taken to another at times bizarre world as the band lay down their genre-defying trawl through just about every style they can throw into their normal melting-pot of ideas.
Our performers here are of course Mirai and Dr Mikannibal and they are joined by long-time collaborator Satoshi Fujinami on bass. After this though more surprises are in store due to the inclusion of Fear Factory drummer Mike Heller and Kreator guitarist Frédéric Leclercq; nope I wasn’t expecting that either.
Wrapping around a 16-sec intro and endpiece of Japanese traditional music we get the main numbers themselves. I think ‘Kuroi Kage’ may mean something along the lines of ‘dark shade’ and it’s here that the real adventurous collision of styles starts. Deep bass rumbles, drums slowly pound and the melody is thick and progressive as it limbers up. There’s encroaching symphonics and the rasping vocals come in Mirai sounding like a very evil goblin as the music lurches and speeds up in bursts. Complete with backing choral parts, wild metallic guitar soloing, proggy keyboards, swaggering drum rolls and an almost jazz laden waltzing flow into blackened thrash, as I said there’s a bit of everything here. Of-course we also get many strange sounds, often at the end of songs, here it’s a strange pulsing distortion, at others it could be a radio travelling through the frequencies. You just have time to take the “did I hear that or not?” facets of this before we fly dramatically into ‘Shoujahitsumetsu’ ‘all living things must die’ a manic black thrasher with some crazy soloing, which is about as straight and linear song as you are going to find on the album. It’s a banger and a half and reminds that it has been far too long since we last caught the band live.
Melodies continue to invade the head as the album progresses with zeal and enthusiasm. Heller really adds to things as he jousts with rim-rolling drum solo and the guitar also gets in with more crazy twists and turns. However just when you are getting head around this some strange psychedelic sounds warp out the keyboards taking your brain off in a leftfield and hallucinatory direction. It wouldn’t be Sigh without a bit of sexy sax and ‘Satsui – Geshi No Ato combines this along with some backing opera vocals for good measure.’ It’s unhinged, it shouldn’t work in the slightest especially considering the multi-continent positioning of the players but somehow it all gels and makes some sort of damn sense. It’s the explaining of it that is near impossible and that’s before we get to a section of what sounds like new-renaissance clavichord. Fancy a passage of lounge music that sounds like it has escaped from a balmy jet-set Giallo along with some piped folk music, don’t worry it’s all in there waiting to mess with your head. I can’t help but wonder what the hell someone hearing Sigh for the 1st time would make of it all, it’s odd enough for a constant listener since the early 90’s. Even Mirai has a good vocal cackle, no doubt realising how many heads he is stewing here but neither he nor we would have it any other way.
Some downright Venomous headbanging is invoked via ‘Shouko’ and it’s galloping bravado makes this a solid pounder complete with crazy and enthusiastic keyboard flurries adding prog-laden schizophrenia. As for ‘Mayonaka No Kaii,’ well I have already tied myself in knots, you can do your own work and check out the video below courtesy of Costin Chioreanu. Finally, yes your ears are not deceiving you, the first 16 seconds are also the last, explaining the ever-repetitive cycle of the seasons, I expect.
I doubt there are many examples of an album with so much packed into its actually restrained 46-minute running time around. I’ve certainly not heard anything quite like this since probably ‘Heir To Despair’ four years ago. You have to congratulate Sigh on once again throwing anything resembling a rule-book out the window and presenting such an out-there, wild card and experimental fusion of ideas, not just in one genre but in all of them!
(8.5/10 Pete Woods)
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