vote
7.0
- Band:
SEAR BLISS - Duration: 00:44:15
- Available from: 28/06/2024
- Label:
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Hammerheart Records
The tides of black metal, in this case the one that willingly borders on the avant-garde, have always been multifaceted, bringing new proposals to light from time to time as abysmal treasures or mercilessly sinking those who are at that moment on the crest of the wave; and yet, in this gurgling splash, (r)emain consolidated bands that, even without touching either extreme, manage to maintain their own, dignified course.
This is the case of Sear Bliss, a Hungarian band with a decades-long career, back in 2024 with their ninth album: “Heavenly Down” is, once again, a beautiful journey through dreamlike and astral panoramas and glacial scenarios set to music, in the form of sharp riffs, a certain atmospheric incursions, harsh and abrasive voices and the omnipresent wind instruments of Zoltán Pál, a true trademark capable of a certain, majestic grandeurparticularly in the foreground in pieces like “The Upper World” or “Forgotten Deities”, where they act as a counterpoint in the more intimate and intimate moments.
The soundscapes are painted – as in the evocative cover, by Kris Verwimp – as always, using a color palette that returns 'warm' autumnal tones for the more absorbed moments (“The Winding Path”, among the best episodes of the entire work), closer to certain Agallochian reflections, mixing them with the darker and stormier shades of a black metal between Borknagar (in particular, in “Chasm” for the pace and alternation of clean/growl voices), Summoning-like epicness, Negură Bunget's folk and woodland darkness and a certain avant-gardism that from the 2000s onwards has marked the steps, albeit in different directions, of people like Arcturus or Enslaved (listen to the experimental verve of the title-track, for example) with here and there some fleeting brushstrokes of the Hellenic black school.
“Watershed” and the final “Feathers In Ashes” are two good examples of what has just been said, and in general the whole album alternates with skill – after all, our guys have at least thirty years of career and experience behind them – resulting in being able to make us spend three quarters of an hour with our gaze fixed on motionless landscapes.
“Heavenly Down” turns out to be, therefore, not a surprise, but not even a disappointment: it is rather a solid confirmation of good quality, as well as the previous “Letters From The Edge”. The absence of shocks or jolts, positive or negative, is certainly a sign, in its own way, of a certain staticity in terms of path, but it is also true that one does not necessarily have to evolve at all costs: Sear Bliss, after having passed through the pagan and symphonic nuances of black metal, have found their own realization at the crossroads between these and the other influences mentioned above, creating a hybrid with roots in past and future scenarios.
If you already know the band or you like to settle down among the black, the ice, the melancholic and the undergrowth, we are sure that you will gladly give the album more than one listen.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM