Hail Spirit Noir – Oi Magoi (2014)

Featuring 60% of the members of Transcending Bizarre?, Hail Spirit Noir delivers their sophomore release with “Oi Magoi”. Featuring a very intriguing and elegant mixture of Psychedelic Rock, Progressive Black Metal, and some magical Avant-garde elements, this release blooms for over 45 minutes of truly unique sonic landscapes.

The release blasts opens with the psychedelically charged “Blood Guru”, a track that is quite well layered and allows all the band’s influences to immediately shine through. The elegant finish to this song oozes melodic brilliance and posture. It is quite interesting to hear elements from bands like Jess and the Ancient Ones and Jex Thoth thrown into tracks like “Demon for a Day” and “Satan is Time”, allowing Hail Spirit Noir to be one of the few bands that mixes Psychedelic Rock elements to create Avant-garde Black Metal.

As sort of a hypnotic interlude, “Satyriko Orgio” nicely breaks up this release before the final onslaught to the finish line. With a more mellow structure, “The Mermaid” is one hell of an 11-minute journey that nicely delivers eerie atmospheric elements with clear Black Metal riffs thrown into the mix. Returning to more evil Black’n’Roll-esque roots, “Hunters” is a very unique song that keeps the listener guessing what will come next thanks to its very unconventional approach.

Saving the Arcturus weirdness to the end, “Oi Magoi” nicely closes this release with a very trippy and sonically intoxicating track, our favorite from this the release. As a whole, Hail Spirit Noir delivers quite a musical experience that is never dull or repetitive. The band avoids sounding like the other band member’s projects and we love it for that. If you are on the market for something unique, weird, and well-crafted look no further and get this one.

Label: Code666 Records

Release: January 20th, 2013

Genre: Avant-garde / Progressive Black Metal

Country: Greece