The Industrial Twilight: Hesychast

Sunday, January 7, 2018

Hesychast - "Ageless" [2016]

Artist: Hesychast

Title: Ageless

Genre: Unblack Metal

Country: USA

Release date: 2016

Track List:

Волны Смерти
Discordant
Trace of Breath
Eye
Moth and Rust
Ageless
Trisagion

Orthodox black metal (and no, I'm talking not about bands like Deathspell Omega, but about actual Orthodox Christian (un)black metal) had been a recurring joke on Russian metal scene since the mid-2000s at least. Nobody could belive such a thing can unironically exist, although a couple of Ukrainian bands (Holy Blood and Euroclydon) actually tried to play it at that time. This album is, however, a relatively new attempt at playing (un)black metal with Orthodox themes by two Americans who apparently were inspired by 2006 "The Island" movie (judging from the samples in the opening track):

What can I say? The result turned out much better than one might expect it to be. Leaving the album theme aside, it's quite decent atmospheric black metal, definitely no worse than the much more hyped "Litourgiya" by Batushka. And, to be honest, it seems like there isn't that much wrong with the topic of hesychasm in black metal either. After all, the history of Orthodoxy knows definitely no less anti-human & anti-life moments than the history of any black metal band out there. So, if you're looking for something "darker" to listen on Eastern Orthodox Xmas, this album might be exactly what you're looking for:

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About this blog

I created this blog mostly because I wanted to practise my English skills, and to showcase the industrial, gothic, punk, metal, neofolk and progressive rock scene of Russia/ex-USSR and Eastern Europe (especially Hungary) in the meanwhile.

As you can see, this blog doesn't take itself seriously enough, but I hope I'm doing good enough with my reviews even if my proficiency in English is limited. Along with the aforementioned stuff from Eastern Europe, I occasionally post some classic and rare albums that aren't to be missed, and generally whatever I want. Other categories of note:

* finno-ugric rarities - various music (including pop) in minor Finno-Ugric languages which I'm interested in because of my heritage. The music from Hungary, Finland and Estonia can be found under the respective categories;

* lo-fi - various poorly recorded demos from before 2000 that are of historical importance. Most of these demos come from the USSR era, so you might want to check out the USSR category as well.

As of now, I try to post only music that has already been made free by the artists themselves, or the rare old releases that are out of print. But if you're an artist and would like me to remove the download links of your work, just contact me using the form below.

Sorry, I don't do reviews by request, I don't have the time. Moreover, I think the bands that feel the need to advertise themselves by sending their demos to as many blogs as possible are usually just plain boring. If you want to contact me for any other reason, use the contact form below.

It should be obvious enough that reviewing anything on here doesn't equals endorsement of artists' personal views. This especially concerns neofolk and martial industrial. It'd be fair enough to say that I have the same approach to the political and religious topics in these genres as Laibach do.

Many of the female musicians featured on my blog are amateur models, and in many cases their modelling work is no less interesting than their music. Right now I'm working on giving it a separate section of the blog (just in case if anyone wants my review to be only about their music and not their looks). The work is in progress, check back later if you're interested.

The title of my blog comes from a song by The Kovenant (album "SETI", 2003).