Hexvessel
No Holier Temple

Clothes don't make the man (at most, the altar boy).

It's always nice to be surprised, especially in these times when everything is known about any new record months before it's released, or if we're lucky, a day after its availability online (a bit of calm would perhaps do good, as everyone listens to albums now, but fewer and fewer actually "listen" to them).

It's nice, then, to "come across" an album that, based on what has been read in magazines, seems just barely interesting, and discover a near-masterpiece. Oh yes, let's get this clear right away: "No Holier Temple" is an shadowy and fascinating album, enjoyable and not at all "esoteric" as I've happened to read.

Of course, if one reads the biographical notes of Hexvessel, there's not much desire to run and listen to them: Finnish, led by a Cornwall escapee, Mat McNerney aka Khvost, connected to the local metal scene and released by a label like Svart. Few doubts would arise about what they play. 90% of us would bet on some variant of pagan metal.
And yet, no. Or rather, on the topic of paganism we're there, although it would be better defined as animism. As for metal and the like, not so much. Hexvessel are among the few bands that can recreate the environment in which they play and live. Their sound is a folk "forestal" and decidedly psychedelic (as they define it on their Facebook page), which looks both to the Albion tradition of the '70s (Spyrogira, partly Fairport Convention, predominantly the mephistophelic Comus), as well as to the mystical drifts of David Tibet and his Current 93, while remaining incontrovertibly Finnish in atmosphere.

A near-masterpiece, as mentioned, thanks to an eclecticism that allows "No Holier Temple" to avoid many genre clichés through unusual instrumental choices, such as the mournful trumpet that breaks the hieratic and perhaps too declamatory singing (the only weak point of the group in my opinion) of the beautiful "Woods To Conjure". Or the duel between fuzz guitar, accordion, and mandolin on "A Letter In Birch Bark", a folk ballad that seems conceived between Tampere, Positano, and Belgrade, to get the idea. The consistently high level of the compositions is surprising, from a "Sacred Marriage" adorned with warm vintage organ and acid guitar, passing through two tracks exceeding 10 minutes."His Portal Tomb", the only track with a high level of electricity, featuring a doom progression and pagan flute, and "Unseen Sun", a long oration to the god Sagan they worship, with unsettling strings dancing around the fire. Up to the final gem: an ultra-acid cover of "Your Head Is Reeling", a little-known track by the psychedelic Bostonians of the late '60s, Ultimate Spinach.

By a wide margin, and without any forewarning, personal album of the year, 2012.