Sargeist / Funeral Elegy

Like most split albums, this collaboration between Sargeist and Funeral Elegy is nearly superfluous. Sargeist had already established themselves in Finland with 2003’s release of “Satanic Black Devotion,” but Funeral Elegy’s story is different. Hailing from Japan, Funeral Elegy was a fairly short-lived band, and so the five songs that appear on this split constitute a large percentage of the songs they ever recorded. As a result, the quality of the music here favors Funeral Elegy. Sargeist’s tracks come across as peripheral leftovers, while Funeral Elegy’s side seems to have received much more attention, by virtue of the songs being fresh output. Even if both sides is largely colorless black metal, at least the split is successful in offering the listener an introduction to a lesser known band.

Sargeist’s “An Oath Sworn for the Holocaust” starts with a picked melodic motif before jumping into blastbeats. The production is just too messy for the music to have an immersive effect, while the guitars are simply adequate. The fuzziness of their sound doesn’t give way to abrasiveness, and they are altogether the clearest part of the production. The vocals, on the other hand, are irritating in both their flatness and placement in the mix. As though in imitation of Attila Csihar, the vocals gargle behind the whirlwind but are always too short-lived in their rasps to contribute anything outstanding. Sargeist are more at home when they return to a melodic, brooding style toward the track’s end, and the simple notes from the bass help the music achieve some level of evil atmosphere.

Sargeist actually accomplish a lot in only four tracks, but each song is really only a rough vignette, unrelated to the one that follows. “Hateful Spirit” is an acoustic track complete with eerie whispers. It’s the sort of song you’d expect to be filler on a full-length, but because it appears alongside only three other tracks it has greater significance here. It should be noted, too, that “Lunar Curse” has a much cleaner production, in which the vocals are distant whispered rasps and the instruments are less chaotic. While none of Sargeist’s tracks are necessarily terrible, they aren’t incredibly worthwhile either. Only fans of the band would be interested in Sargeist’s side, but even so you could just listen to “Satanic Black Devotion” or “Disciple of the Heinous Path” for a much more focused listening experience.

Sargeist and Funeral Elegy’s styles aren’t completely complementary, but they have the same effective mixture of melody and aggression that makes their black metal more atmospheric. “Dropped on Inferna” is a deceptive introduction to Funeral Elegy’s side because it offers nothing except a taste of the production. It’s nothing but stale tremolo and drums that alternate between blastbeats and syncopated sections. There’s a noticeable deficiency in the vocals, which are distant and dry, barely hearable beneath the guitars. In fact, they could easily be mistaken for hardcore shouts. At over six minutes in length, “Dropped on Inferna” is much too long, in any case.

There is, however, a much more organic quality to Funeral Elegy’s sound that doesn’t give way to chaos. The drums are very clear for the most part and are at their best when they stick to a more rockish style, as opposed to blastbeats. Both “Black Desire” and “Baal” remind me of Judas Iscariot’s song “From Hateful Visions,” if Judas Iscariot had taken up a more melancholic approach like Funeral Elegy. None of the Funeral Elegy tracks are masterpieces or anything, but the band was still young at this point. Even though they offer nothing surprising, their five tracks have an intimate rehearsal-like feeling to them that makes their side enjoyable. Besides, how many black metal bands do you know from Japan?

If I could rate the sides individually, I’d give Sargeist a 35% and Funeral Elegy a 50%. In all honesty, those numbers contain a certain degree of arbitrariness. This release, as is the case with most splits, does not exactly motivate the listener to hate the music or to love it. Sargeist’s full-lengths do them more justice, but the split adds a new voice to the genre that you would otherwise probably never hear, even if said voice is borderline forgettable. In this way, at any rate, the split isn’t entirely unnecessary.