The idea of companion albums is sometimes off-putting, leaving the feeling that if you go into it without the prerequisite background knowledge then you’re somehow missing out on the full experience. Therefore, the knowledge that Sideris is intended as a completion of the work began with 2023’s ambitious Ordalie means there should be some kind of barrier to its immediate acceptance in place, but for some reason it’s such an easy album to fall for, to be drawn into its complexities and raw emotionality, that you’ll immediately want to seek out everything Miserere Luminis have ever done.
Comprising guitarist/bassist Neptune and drummer/vocalist Icare (both from atmospheric black metal duo Gris) as well as guitarist/vocalist Annatar (the driving force behind Sombres Forêts), the band have been around for longer than one might think and have spent their time perfecting an expansive and exquisitely detailed take on black metal that brings on board prog, post-rock, hardcore, groove metal and orchestral flourishes, an everything-including-the-kitchen-sink approach that never feels cluttered. Instead, each track feels like a fever dream, a series of soundscapes connected by their own logic and rendered in vivid clarity.
Each of these five tracks are stirring in their own right, every one with its own euphoric highs and moments of sweeping grandeur, times where savagery, intricacy and beauty all collide in a way that feels familiar yet so dazzlingly intricate that there’s simply no way that the elements could have come together by anyone else. The guitarwork stays away from black metal cliches, instead opting for bright, clean lines that echo Ulcerate’s Michael Hoggard not only in tone but also in the how they smartly switch up polyrhythmic complexity and hulking grooves to sometimes disorienting effect, and broad swathes of post-rock tremolo. Coupled with a sparing but well-applied use of strings and piano, the true scope of each of the compositions becomes clear to the extent that it feels like each could spiral outwards for hours without it ever feeling tired or forced.
While this could make for an interesting instrumental rock album in its own right, it’s in the album’s vocals that the full emotional brunt is blasted at the listener. The howls and bellows drip with emotion, gusts of melancholy, fury and ennui that whip around the ears as the music weaves its own mesmeric dance. Put together, the experience feels, for want of a better word, complete. Sidera feels like a work that has been meticulously crafted, every element from the composition to the dreamlike production and obvious technical proficiency a demonstration of the work, passion and thought that has gone into it. For that reason alone, it deserves some time and attention – the quality riffing is an added bonus.
