Sigh
Scorn Defeat

We find ourselves back in 1993 when the first full-length album by the Japanese band Sigh, 'Scorn Defeat', was released, a remarkable work but probably penalized by the particular historical context in which it emerged. Let’s proceed in order.

The Tokyo group was formed even earlier, in 1989, when Darkthrone and Burzum had not yet released anything particularly black metal, dabbling in their original projects based on raw and unhealthy Death; Sigh played a style of Metal that was extreme for the time, akin to what the main bands of this musical wave were doing worldwide, too out of the ordinary to fit into pure Thrash, not yet in Black for evident historical reasons (the genre would "be born" as a culture and then as a style between 1990 and 1991); the leading groups of this movement are well known, Celtic Frost/Hellhammer, Bathory, Tormentor, Morbid, and Sarcofago (just the first that come to mind, to which should be added, although more in line with the Thrash of the time, Kreator and Sodom). It's mainly the Swiss Celtic Frost who heavily influenced the style of the newly formed Japanese group, before their definitive break from extreme metal in favor of (appreciated and appreciable) more Avant-garde paths.

Listening to 'Scorn Defeat' is something moving: not so much for the quality or ingenuity poured into the tracks, but for the atmosphere that can be felt between the grooves of the record. These were years of great vitality for the nascent black metal: the thematic, stylistic, and image characteristics were not yet fully defined, although many masterpieces had already been published before Scorn Defeat. There was still a certain excitement in the air about how different cultural influences could affect black metal and give it dozens of different nuances: today this seems a natural thought, considering the diversity of bands like Arcturus and Manes on one hand, Aborym on the other, Cradle Of Filth, Xasthur, and Nortt; today we have at least a dozen different scenes, most of which interpret the genre from a personal perspective, both stylistically and conceptually (the Religious Metal, the Slavonic Metal, the American Depressive, the NS Black Metal…). But it was during this period that the foundations for the genre's branching were laid; anyone who considers Black Metal to be an essentially Norwegian subgenre closes themselves off to paralleling the Scandinavian reality that is equally significant.

The hub of this flow of ideas is nonetheless the Deathlike Silence by Euronymous (guitarist of Mayhem), a tiny local independent label, which had the merit of putting a large number of European bands in touch, providing a recording support to lay the foundations for a "common project"; among the various Monumentum, Arcturus, Morbid, Mayhem, and Burzum, in the publication list of DSP we also find 'Scorn Defeat' by Sigh, which thus found itself among the albums that mattered.

After these long cultural premises, it is nevertheless necessary to explain why Sigh never became a leading group in the Black Metal scene. More than geographical isolation (the Hungarian Tormentors were much more isolated during the USSR era), the retro aspect of their music most likely played against Sigh. 'Scorn Defeat' was indeed released in a year, specifically 1993, that saw the publication of significant albums like 'De Mysteriis' by Mayhem and 'Under a Funeral Moon' by Darkthrone (the first concrete expressions of the emerging style) and Det Som Engang Var by Burzum (already a milestone in extremism); the Black Metal as played by Sigh, reminiscent of Celtic Frost, could not emerge in such a context: overshadowed on the "choreographic" front (just think of the cover of Aske by Burzum) and on the cultural front (too different from the Europeans), 'Scorn Defeat' musically also seemed like a record that was at least five years old.

Linked to the horror dimension of extreme music, the album indeed paid the price to that entirely eighties conception of Extreme Metal, that of a theatrical and baroque genre, inspired as much by Bathory as by Mercyful Fate. Not even the exoticism of the lyrics, all concerning the dark side of traditional Japanese religion, managed to make the group stand out.

Despite this, 'Scorn Defeat' is still today a pleasant and enjoyable album: beautiful the gothic parts that enrich the album, especially the piano ones, which give it a theatrical atmosphere without ever lapsing into the gaudy. The technical skills and especially the recording are good, remarkable for the time, capable of highlighting the group's cohesion and the blend between the metal and symphonic parts. Also good are the contemporary doom Albion references, from Paradise Lost to Anathema, albeit filtered through the black metal code.

A must for the nostalgic.