Unreqvited - Beautiful Ghosts (2021)

There are artists who produce a lot of albums (and for me, it means more than one a year) and they are all absolutely of the same, high quality. In those cases, I can't really post about all of them, but sometimes you have no choice. The Canada's Unreqvited is one of those projects. They released great albums Mosaic II: la déteste et la détresse and Empathica last year alone and are back with another brilliant thing called Beautiful Ghosts.

There's no mistake in that they call their music "depressive & uplifting" nor that the album's title refers to both the aesthetically pleasing and the mysterious. The artist's signature sound goes together with what is often referred to as blackgaze: the rapid flow of metal music that is being made more accessible by electronica and synth's use. And then there are also sacral-like, very airy backing vocals (so beautiful in Autumn & Everley), drones and neoclassical instruments (so epic in Cherish). One would say that this is this kind of stuff that is surely meant to get lost within metal music, but Unreqvited manages to somehow keep alive both faces of his music: the metal is loud, the ethereal parts are beautiful. Beautiful ghosts. And it's especially well-audible in tracks like Funeral Pyre with all its diversity.

It also very much fits the theme of the release, love, although, as the album's Bandcamp description points, "pop music basically has one universal topic: love, which is probably the very reason why metal bands generally shy away from that subject like the plague". If that's true, Beautiful Ghosts does such a great job to sound like the poppest black metal music ever. That said, it seems that it's not really what the artist wants to be the only sound of their project, as they state on Facebook, "Beautiful Ghosts isn’t necessarily indicative of where the music is going moving forward, in fact, the next thing i’m working on (for a spilt ep) will be the complete opposite". I presume there's gonna be some blacker music soon coming from this direction.

Beautiful Ghosts costs 6.99 USD.

Unreqvited - Mosaic II: la déteste et la détresse (2020) EN

Check: Autumn & Everley

Country: Canada

Genre: artsy blackgaze

Label: Prophecy Productions

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Unreqvited - Mosaic II: la déteste et la détresse (2020) EN

How is it possible for a music to be at the same time "depressive & uplifting"? It's answered by the Canadian artist who makes music as Unreqvited. His very rich blackgaze was shown multiple times already, this time it's on this year's second part of his album Mosaic.

As could be expected from blackgaze, in the Canadian's music two natures collide: the aggression and depression of metal and epicness and hopefulness of the airy elements. The withdrawn, always inspired scream sounds like a choir of fallen angels and it's well accompanied by the walls of synths. For my taste there's sometimes too many those dad-rock guitar riffs but in the long run there's more post-metal noise here and I'm going to stick to that.

There are moments of rest, as in the piano keys-dominated first part of Disorder, but, as expected, it's mostly for the next fragments feel even more monumental and with even bigger grandeur. The artist himself writes that "this album now contains the ire, misery and anxiety in between, making it my darkest, most daring release to date", but it seems to me that there's still a lot of hope in the sound of the Canadian's music.

Mosaic II: la déteste et la détresse costs 6.99 USD.

Check: Disorder

Country: Canada

Genre: original blackgaze
Label: Prophecy Productions

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Unreqvited - Mosaic II: la déteste et la détresse (2020) PL

Jak to możliwe, że muzyka ma być jednocześnie "depresyjna i podnosząca na duchu"? Przybliża kanadyjski artysta występujący pod sceniczną nazwą Unreqvited. Swój przebogaty blackgaze pokazywał już wielokrotnie, tym razem na tegorocznej drugiej części dzieła Mosaic.

Jak można się spodziewać po blackgazie, w muzyce Kanadyjczyka ścierają się dwie natury, agresja i depresja metalu z podniosłością i nadzieją eterycznych elementów. Wycofany, zawsze natchniony scream brzmi jak chór upadłych aniołów, a akompaniują mu w tym udanie ściany synthów. Trochę jak na mój gust za dużo dad-rockowych riffów gdzieniegdzie, jedna na dłuższą metę więcej tu post-metalowego hałasu i tego się będę trzymał. 

Zdarzają się też momenty zupełnego wytchnienia, jak w zdominowanym przez klawisze pianina początku Disorder, natomiast jak można się spodziewać, istnieją one tylko po to by następne fragmenty doniosły jeszcze bardziej monumentalnie i z jeszcze większym rozmachem. Sam pisze, że "ten album zawiera gniew, rozpacz i niepewność w sobie, co sprawia, że to póki co moje najmroczniejsze, najśmielsze wydawnictwo", wydaje mi się jednak, że jest w brzmieniu muzyki Kanadyjczyka wciąż sporo z muzyki nadziei.

Mosaic II: la déteste et la détresse kosztuje 30 złotych (6,99 USD).

Sprawdź: Disorder

Kraj: Kanada

Szufladka: original blackgaze

Label: Prophecy Productions

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