Hegemon have been around for a while now – two decades to be exact – shuffling around on the underground with a couple of half decent full-length releases before an album with Season of Mist in 2008. Contemptus Mundi also fell into that burgeoning category of eminently likeable, solid black metal albums. Enjoyable though it was, the problem with Hegemon’s previous releases was it was difficult to say what separated them from the pack and it’s difficult to imagine that many who caught them have been sitting in frenzied anticipation for the past seven years over this latest release. But that would be a shame because, as with an ever growing number of black metal bands at the moment, Hegemon have suddenly and inexplicably upped their game.
The Hierarch takes all the best bit from 2008’s Contemptus Mundi and then convincingly wipes the floor with everything they’ve managed to pull off before. It’s not only the deeper production and the attention to detail or the impressively mixed, sparsely used orchestral passages that have placed Hegemon on a higher level. But they seem to have adopted some of the boundary trampling of their French countrymen a more open approach which has let the band’s creativity fly on dark bat-like wings.
The old band – which was drafted into Season of Mist as part of its Underground Activists division – is still there underneath it all with those mid-paced nodding riffs that quicken and slow, at levels of acceleration that will make your face melt, before descending into evil sounding acoustic passages. But the band seems to have thrown itself open to a whole load of news ideas and influences. A little bit of Emperor and Dimmu Borgir as well as that steady pace of bands like Lord Belial and Naglfar. The album slowly begins to unfold rather than instantly hurling itself at you – as if the band is in no hurry to impress with its new found confidence.
After the primitive shock of the first two tracks, third track ‘Elysean Expectations, Earthy Deceptions’ is probably the first sign that this album is going to be a slow burn into a gradual inferno. By track five ‘Atomos: Seed of the Quantic Gods’ the band flips off any pretence that this is going to be a predictable journey with the introduction of some steady occult-like chanting that builds into a five minute crescendo and raises the curtain on the rest of the album.
Lots of huge Emperor-style tremolo riffs, bursts of speed and a few choice samples help lift The Hierarch into a chaotic frenzy that gets better with each track and with each listen. But at the same time, despite having clearly pulled out all the stops in the first half of the album, the band manages to whip the tidal wave along further, encasing everything before it in its rising vortex rather than leaving you paddling along with a band that uses gimmicks and gadgetry as a crutch – like so many black metal bands that dabble with symphonic sounds. It’s difficult to say that Hegemon is providing something entirely new here but they have clearly hit their stride. The Hierarch is a very good album that the average black metal fan with a taste for varied and engaging song structures, the odd melody and some well-used symphonic blasts will appreciate.
(8/10 Reverend Darkstanley)
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