This is the third album from solo Greek black metal band Night Vigil.
This is an easy band for fans of Auriferous Flame, Mystras, and Spectral Lore to take an interest in, as the same artist behind these bands is also the one behind Night Vigil. The Hamlet contains 35 minutes of material, and it’s not to be missed by adherents of atypical extremity.
The Hamlet is chiefly an atmospheric black metal album, but of a peculiar kind with a voice of its own. Additionally, it makes effective use of doom and ambient elements. The resulting style is immersive and mood-rich.
The Hamlet feels like you’re entering a discrete world, separated from the real one by the thinnest of veils. It’s a dark and textured environment, bleak and foreboding, yet also alive with promise for those with the necessary constitution needed to explore it fully.
The music combines atmosphere, intricate complexity, and harsh abrasive aggression. This is not your standard black metal; technical and involved, yet still evocative of its subject matter, the music is challenging, while remaining engaging. The artist behind Night Vigil is adept at creating music with depth, music that demands a deeper, closer look. The Hamlet exemplifies this.
Riffs and melodies are contorted and twisted. Atmosphere is built up and torn down. Drums trample down paths of their own making, while a squealing guitar makes a master of its own direction. The vocals shift between screams and cleans and back again, with surprisingly emotive weight to many of the cleanly sung parts. At other times things are more straightforward, driven by scything blackened blasts, mournful inhuman doom dirges, or bleakly affecting ambience. In essence, The Hamlet may be brief, but it’s an album of substance.
This is a record for connoisseurs of underground black metal gems. It requires a certain level of initiation into the esoteric extreme metal arts to appreciate fully, and speaks to the richness of the depth and breadth of the metallic underworld. Basically, this sits apart from the majority of the blackened hordes, and for those it speaks to, The Hamlet is a strong, rewarding album.
Very highly recommended.
Wonderbox Metal 