text: Oscar Wendt
Slegest
Vidsyn
Dark Essence Records
November 4th, 2016
Slegest, a Norwegian creation of Ese (ex-Vreid), who writes all the music and leads the band, had me interested in his music ever since the debut release in 2013, Løyndom. With the phenomenal blend of various metal genres and aspects, Slegest makes it difficult to compare its music to anything else. This is why I got really thrilled as soon as the info about the new album has hit the Internet. Vidsyn, released through Dark Essence Records, is Slegest’s second opus and yet another tribute to various musical influences. Hold on to something tight, Slegest is back!
If you have heard Løyndom before, you know how cool and approachable Slegest is. Heavy metal influence throughout combined with black metal vocals and some doom metal overtones. So, did Ese decide to keep the same route with Vidsyn or did he go astray into disparate metal regions? Yes and no. The album has definitely kept the original Slegest spirit, but it sounds a little bit lighter in some aspects. But this is absolutely not a disadvantage as it emphasizes what I like about Slegest the most – this exceptional combination of the two seemingly unparalleled worlds. Ese’s vocals add a lot of character to already rich compositions. Som I Eit Endelikt is one of those songs – the powerful and strong black metal growls cast a decrepit aura on the rock’n’roll vibes.
As you continue listening to Vidsyn, you keep finding some more alluring aspects. In spite of its more heavy metal/rock undertone, the album is quite dark in atmosphere not only because of Ese’s vocals. A lot of interesting and slowly elongated passages accentuate Slegest’s aspirations for the evil world. Some AC/DC reminiscences, just like in Wolf, combined with the aforementioned atmosphere must result in something intriguing, right? Also, some various and maybe less obvious Black Sabbath references simply endorse the fact that Slegest derives from the best and, applying its own character, makes it one-of-a-kind production.
I also found that Vidsyn is difficult to get bored with. I got the same feeling after I was ‘overlistening‘ to Løyndom a while back so, in essence, it’s fantastic to see that Slegest is keeping its form of being a simply entertaining band. And oh yeah, having had a chance to see the band live at Blastfest this year, I can easily say that the guys are not losing their personality on stage! Rather the opposite, live experience has just emphasized my interest in the band. I hope the new material from Vidsyn is as strong live as it is being listened to in my room.
THE GOAT TAVERN 