Sounds | Hemelbestormer - Usil

Het Belgische post-doom-kwartet Hemelbestormer heeft vandaag aangekondigd dat zij op 25 juli a.s. een nieuw album zullen gaan uitbrengen dat de naam The Radiant Veil zal dragen. Ter ere van die aankondiging is vandaag ook de eerste single daarvan naar buiten gekomen, ondersteund door een onheilspellende en tot de verbeelding sprekende clip: Usil.

De band zegt hierover: "'Usil', het meedogenloze en kolossale openingsnummer van The Radiant Veil, biedt zowel pure schoonheid als pure kracht, net als de zon, waarnaar het is vernoemd. Het is een epische introductie, een intense voorbode van wat nog komen gaat en het begin van een reis die je niet snel zult vergeten."

In mei, juli en augustus staan er nog verschillende optredens in Nederland en België van Hemelbestormer op de kalender. Check hun site en facebook voor data en locaties.

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Hemelbestormer have been a commanding entity in the heavy music scene for over ten years, with their idiosyncratic take on the merger of post-rock, doomgaze and black metal. Made up of veterans from the Belgian hardcore and metal community, the four piece from Hasselt create intricate sonic journeys through space and time built over punishing riffs and spine-chilling climaxes. With their fourth full-length The Radiant Veil, Hemelbestormer take their songwriting and production to new heights, honouring their name as trailblazers on the intersection of dark and light, the crushingly heavy and the hauntingly beautiful.

Having appeared at many of Europe’s finest music festivals – ranging from Roadburn festival to Dunk! festival to Graspop Metal Meeting – Hemelbestormer feel right at home on stages with a wide variety of heavy, experimental and ethereal acts. The road combining ethereal post-rock with seething black metal has been travelled by many acts, but with Hemelbestormer that winding path has taken a different turn. Facing away from shoegaze or indie rock influences, the band find a more sophisticated way of incorporating unsettling melodies, blast beats and lo-fi synthesizers to emulate the dark void of space and eerie cold light of stars.

Powered by HM-2 pedals and a Lovecraft-ian use of retro synths, The Radiant Veil is driven by an old-school mentality that appears both learned and sincere. Produced by main songwriter Filip Dupont alongside Cosemans, the eerie space noises coalesce like a celestial respiration between the bouts of metallic riffing and tremolo picked riffs. 

Album opener 'Usil' is a compositional masterpiece from start to finish, combining seismic riffing with ice-cold guitar leads, as if Russian Circles had been formed in a small Norwegian fishing village in the early 90s. Meticulously building up to a double kick-driven finale, the band carefully lay the groundwork for an  hour of transformative music that follows.

The Radiant Veil includes a guest feature from Philip Jamieson of Caspian on the track 'Turms'. As Cosemans comments: “Our guitarist Jo has been friends with Caspian for years, so a collaboration had to come about at some point. Philip did a fantastic job in the studio and really managed to add his own signature.” 

Hemelbestormer are a sight to behold on stage, and with The Radiant Veil they penetrate deeper than ever into the farthest reaches of their sonic space ethos. Once more the Belgians capture the cavernous expanse between the cold lights of the universe, but also our power as humans to explore it, proving their greatness as masterclass storytellers in sight and sound.