Tag Archives: peaceville

Sigh – Goh-Ka (Peaceville)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description: THE EPIC NEW STUDIO ALBUM FROM THE LONG-STANDING JAPANESE METAL PIONEERS, INCLUDING GUEST APPEARANCE FROM OPETH’S MIKAEL ÅKERFELDT.

Japanese metal pioneers Sigh formed in 1989/1990. Their genre-classic Black Metal debut ‘Scorn Defeat’ arrived in 1993, and with a subsequent journey through the strange and the psychedelic, incorporating a whole eclectic mix of genre styles & ideas throughout their career, Sigh has remained a vital creative force in the avantgarde field whilst maintaining their old school roots, as witnessed on the 2022 album (and first for Peaceville Records), ‘Shiki’. This was followed by the remaking of their ‘Hangman’s Hymn’ album as part of the band’s 35th anniversary celebrations, in the shape of ‘I Saw the World’s End: Hangman’s Hymn MMXXV’ (2025).

Considered as somewhat of a natural evolution, yet an even more diverse leap over the already compositionally and dynamically accomplished ‘Shiki’ opus, Sigh returns with ‘Goh-ka’; a new highlight of atmosphere, technical mastery, and meticulously arranged epics of metallic grandeur.

Main-man Mirai Kawashima notes this as being as equally personal an album as ‘Shiki’, both musically and lyrically. From a musical perspective, if you were to place the main ingredients of Celtic Frost, Voivod, Black Sabbath, horror movies and Japan into a cauldron and stir it, you will get ‘Goh-ka’. Numerous additional spices such as psychedelic rock, prog rock and classical music are also evident over the album’s close to one-hour duration.

The album title ‘Goh-ka’ has a triple meaning, being: 業火 infernal fire scorching sinners, 劫火 a huge fire that burns down the world at the end of time, and 業果 karma.
The primary theme permeating the album is Kuso-zu; a series of Buddhist paintings or illustrations depicting the nine stages of a human body’s decomposition after death, created to encourage meditation on the impermanence of life, the inevitability of death, and the detachment from physical beauty and worldly attachment. It openly shows the harsh reality that no matter how beautiful you are, you’ll be dead and rot sooner or later. And Kuso-shi is a poem based on these paintings. The artworks on the cover and in the booklet of ‘Goh-ka’ are therefore Kuso-zu themselves.

Joining Mirai Kawashima and Dr Mikannibal along with guitarist Nozomu Wakai, are Frédéric Leclercq (Kreator) on bass, plus renowned US drummer Mike Heller.

Among the additional contributors to the album, Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth notably delivers a special guest guitar solo on the track, ‘Unputenpu’.

‘Goh-ka’ was recorded across multiple studios, and once again mixed and mastered by Lasse Lammert at LSD studios in Germany. 

Mortem – Morketid (Peaceville)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description: THE SECOND STUDIO ALBUM FROM THE NORWEGIAN EXTREME METAL PIONEERS, COMPRISING MEMBERS OF ARCTURUS, THORNS, MAYHEM & 1349.


Mortem was originally known as the Norwegian cult band which preceded Arcturus. Formed by Marius Vold & Steinar Sverd Johnsen in 1989, Mortem was one of the first black metal bands to crawl out of the woodwork in Norway, releasing the highly coveted and brutal ‘Slow Death’ demo, with Euronymous & Dead of Mayhem acting as producer and cover artist respectively (whilst also featuring Hellhammer on session drums). After the release of ‘Slow Death’, the band was laid to rest, with members going on to form and feature in acclaimed titans such as Arcturus and Thorns, both of which would become mainstays in the black metal scene and beyond.

It wasn’t until 2019, when Mortem’s studio debut ‘Ravnsvart’ was released, and the magic of old undoubtedly returned with that same spirit and brutality of the original incarnation, whilst injecting new elements to form an opus of ferocious yet atmospheric horror. This was followed soon after by the fully re-recorded and re-worked ‘Slow Death’ tracks.

And now Mortem returns with new ode to the dark, ‘Mørketid’. The album presents an expansion and marked progression over the debut, with brooding mid-paced monumental riffs interspersed with periods of hyperspeed black metal. The album presents eight tracks of savage yet eerie and also often epic Black Metal of the highest order, adorned with the indomitable keyboard textures of Sverd, along with Hellhammer’s unmistakable percussive prowess, and the returning vicious snarls of vocalist Marius Vold.

‘Mørketid’ was recorded at Toproom Studio in Norway, by Børge Finnstad & Kevin Kleiven.