Japanese black metal outfit Sigh are a band who have truly earned the tag legends, especially in their home country.
Since forming in 1989 with mainstay Mirai Kawashima, Sigh have progressed to become one of Japan’s greatest and most revered metal exports.
The band will reveal their new album Shiki on August 26, a dark and heavy opus that centres around Kawashima’s fear of dying and death and how he struggles with it on a daily basis.
The album includes some of the heaviest and most personal work in Sigh’s 30+ year history, also incorporating an eclectic assortment of unique instruments that serve to accentuate the sheer brilliance contained within.
Kawashima joined HEAVY earlier this week to talk about Shiki.
With the press release calling Shiki the darkest and heaviest album of Sigh’s career, we start by asking if Kawashima agrees with the statement.
"Yes, definitely,” he nodded. “The album is almost about my personal fear of getting old and fear of death. So, the music had to be very dark and heavy as well because the theme is very heavy. Definitely this is very heavy and dark, probably the heaviest album by Sigh ever."
When pushed to reveal how this album ticks those boxes, Kawashima replied. "At first I was planning to make the album in the vein of a more black metal, primitive, straight forward album but as the time went by I kept arranging these songs again and again so it turned out to be a little different from my first plan. Still, I think it's got a lot of black metal and a dark and eerie feel in it. And of course, it's got a lot of Japanese traditional instruments. It has a lot of an Asian and Japanese feel in it too."
In the full interview, Mirai talks more about the songs on Shiki, the meaning of the title, how it confronts his feelings of death, the addition of Frederic Leclercq and Mike Heller and what they brought to the sound, the combining of East meets West musically and how they make it work and more.