April 2022 Feature Release – The North Edition

Another month flies by, which means it's time to select a new feature release for The North. As it's my turn to choose, I've gone with Sear Bliss' Glory and Perdition album from 2004. I must admit that I often select feature releases with certain members in mind, as I like to pick albums that I think at least one Metal Academy attendee will really get something out of. This month's selection is a bit a braver choice, as I'm really not very sure whether any of you are going to be all that enamoured with it. It's a very special album for me though, so well, here it is...

As usual, it would be great to read what you all think of it either below or in review format.

https://metal.academy/releases/9420

To the best of my knowledge, I have never heard any Hungarian metal regardless of any sub-genre guise. Somehow, over the last nearly three decades, I have never come across Sear Bliss. Whilst I cannot recall having heard even a fleeting few bars of any of Glory and Perdition, somehow it does sound familiar. After one full listen through I was already marking similarities with Summoning where Glory and Perdition used horns and synths to note its presence in the room. The fact that I do not mind a bit of Summoning one bit probably helps me to register and accept the use of electronic and symphonic elements on this month’s feature release even though I am not a massive fan of the symphonic black metal sub-genre overall.

Having said that, I do not find this album to be overly symphonic, despite a near constant feed of orchestral instrumentation. It certainly plays an important supporting role in proceedings but is never allowed to dominate. Instead, those brass instruments create a swell in their delivery, expanding the sound of the album as the intricate keys tantalise with the promise of further wonder to come. Often these elements are played in as simple stabs or flourishes and as such are beautifully paced over the album. In the traditional sense it is the guitars that drive proceedings the most, with their riffs propelling the tracks forward. The charging opening to Two Worlds Collide underlines this input superbly. Also noticeable are the drums as they thump away in just the right space in the background to support the other component parts and keep everything tracked together nicely. Check out the superb work being done on Dreams Spectre to properly capture the contribution the sticks make to this album. This balance of the instruments and the atmospheric and symphonic elements is expertly done; using the alien voice on Reverie is a bold move yet it sits well atop of the music without feeling intrusive or downright odd.

Sear Bliss also manage to carry off the inclusion of some interludes on the album, doing this well in the sense that they do not disrupt the flow of the overall record. Normally when I see such compositions dropped into any album, I die a little inside as I just find they often scream “FILLER!” in my experience. The three here (one is the outro I guess) are all around the minute and a half mark and do transition the album nicely.

Whilst not anywhere near as aggressive as I normally like my bm, Sear Bliss do deliver melodic bm well. There is a sense at first that it is put together a bit hap-hazard but as I revisit the album there is a sense of coagulation across all tracks and this makes me think it is more planned than it first appears to be. With repeated listens the blasting pace is most definitely there, and it never feels out of control or rudely cut off by any of the pace or tempo changes. Although not staggeringly so, the epic nature of the writing here belies a band that I at least need to give a little more attention to. I note that Mayhem’s Attila and proffers vocals on two tracks here suggesting that this is a band with a good degree of stature in the underground already. In many ways Sear Bliss are reminiscent of a more aggressive Negura Bunget. This mix of earthy structures interspersed with the astral bursts of rich and lush melodies such as on the track Glory to Perdition reminds me of the Romanians only with a much-reduced level of complexity or extravagance.

Ben seemed to be a tad pensive in announcing this as his feature for the month, but I think this has been an excellent choice and one that certainly rewards with repeated listens. With the cosmological parts set firmly in their place around the core bm elements, Glory and Perdition captures an experience as opposed to just being an album to listen to. In its more atmospheric moments, it reminds me of Darkspace / Paysage D’hiver and in the more traditional moments it can hold its own with any of the bands I mention through out this review. I think the only criticism is that it is not as instantaneous an experience as some might want and the fact that it does need a few listens may put some off. The work is worth the reward though and the album records a healthy four stars which may creep up as I continue to put this on rotation.

4/5

I think any hesitance on Ben's part was mainly directed at me Vinny as he knows how much I hate the horns in Summoning & that I'm not all that big on melodic black metal in general. For that reason I went into "Glory & Perdition" with great trepidation but it's ended up overachieving on my expectations. There's a lot more to this record than the admittedly silly horn sounds which were presumably performed by their full-time trombonist which is certainly a gimmick I could without in my black metal. The strength of Sear Bliss' sound is in the tight & well-defined traditional black metal component. They simply perform everything with the utmost confidence & as a cohesive unit which helps them to overcome the occasional dodgy riff they include in almost every track. The production job seems well suited to highlighting the band's strengths too which also helps. The lush keyboard accompaniments are strong contributors to the creation of some fairly unique & cosmic atmospheres that sometimes even remind me of my beloved Burzum only not nearly as dark. The snarls of front man András Nagy are just how I like my black metal vocals while the addition of Attila Csihar on a couple of tracks is most welcome.

It has to be said that around 40% of the tracklisting isn't to my taste with "Night Journey", "Two Worlds Collide", "Blood Serenade" & "Lacus Somniorum" not doing very much for me. Thankfully there's just enough quality in the remaining six tracks for the whole experience to come across as positive though. Admittedly the album's chances weren't done any harm by the inclusion of a couple of great interludes which were the best part of the record for me personally (particularly "Reverie" which seems like a missed opportunity for something more significant in hindsight). On the negative, the album does peter out noticeably at the end which meant that it took me a few listens to come out with a positive score.

Overall, "Glory & Perdition" isn't gonna change my opinion on the use of those god awful horn sounds but it was a welcome reminder that I need to keep myself open to new ideas. It's interesting that the album is generally labelled as "melodic black metal" but I hear very little meloblack here. Yes, there's melody utilized fairly consistently but the tag is meant to draw together bands with a specific sound (i.e. those utilizing complex melodic harmonies in a similar vein to Swedish death metal e.g. Dissection) & Sear Bliss leave us with something much closer to conventional black metal with atmospheric black metal & symphonic black metal secondary components. Ben agrees with me but feels that melodic black metal fans are most likely to enjoy the record so he's comfortable with it's tagging. That may be true but I'm far more hard & fast with my tagging so I've voted down the meloblack tag & proposed a Conventional Black Metal one even though this isn't exactly a conventional black metal release. Anyway... not a bad extreme metal album overall but it doesn't reach deep enough inside of me to warrant too many return visits in the future.

3.5/5

But the horns are performed by giant horned warriors standing atop a field of slain angels!

Well Ben, obviously I can't speak for everyone, but it seems your apprehension around this album was unfounded. I didn't think either the trombone or the keyboards intruded overly, both being fairly restrained in their usage and they enhanced the black metal rather than overwhelmed it, giving the music an additional dimension. I don't feel like the horns were included as some kind of gimmick either, as some may assume, because they are just too well integrated into the overall sound to simply be an afterthought. Of course all this is for nothing if the meat and potatoes of the album, the actual black metal, isn't any good. Thankfully, there is no cause for concern here as the black metal itself is of a pretty high standard and is as good as any band ploughing the fields of melodic black metal. There are some quite catchy riffs, such as during the title track which will stick in your head even after the disc stops spinning. Now I don't know if he is friendly with the band or is just helping his fellow countrymen out, but Attila Csihar puts in an appearance on a couple of tracks and it's always good to hear his input, even though regular vocalist András Nagy is a more than capable black metal singer.

I must admit I went into Glory and Perdition with a little bit of apprehension, but was pleasantly surprised by how great the record sounds and with a running time of less than forty minutes it is unlikely to outstay it's welcome (a lesson some other black metal bands still need to learn). Needless to say, I will have no qualms about returning to it and even delving further into Sear Bliss' discography.

4/5

These reviews make me very happy. I love sharing music with others, but for some reason I often assume that my adoration for certain albums is more a personal connection rather than a more objective viewpoint. If any of you want to delve further into Sear Bliss, I highly recommend this album's follow-up, The Arcane Odyssey (2007), and their most recent release, Letters From the Edge (2018).

I got a ton of out of this one, since a lot of the Symphonic Black Metal albums that I come across aren't exactly great. Glory and Perdition takes simple additions like brass and atmospheric, spacy synth backing and really nails exactly how much to use of it and when. The overall album feel and theme is incredibly unique and powerfully written as, like the others have said, there honestly isn't much of it. The trumpet/trombone combo only show up once or twice a track and the rest of the transitional sections are drenched in this eerie, somewhat heavenly but still Black Metal evil sounding synth and orchestra that works really well in my opinion. The interludes are a bit too segmented I think, because while I think they're integral to the album, the flow gets sort of halted by "Reverie", "Ode to a Dying Star", and especially when the album ends on "Lacus Somniorum" after the enormous closer "Blood Serenade". Attila Csihar is back yet again and although it took me quite a few Mayhem listens to not hate his vocal style, it's impressive to hear him sound so good and at home in an album with more production elements and a bigger, more triumphant atmosphere. His throat-like singing sounds awesome as a compliment to the rest of Sear Bliss's act on the opening "Birth of Eternity", but his other feature on "Shores of Death" may be one of the weaker parts of the album despite the middle section being very creative and memorable with the synths and horns. Really strong and cool album overall, easily one of my new albums to point to for a different and effective take on Symphonic Black Metal.

4/5