For me, some of the most important characteristic of good art is that it arouses strong emotions, moves us to a different reality, lets us distance ourselves to our lives and surroundings and creatively and smartly uses the available resources. As for music albums, there are many that have these characteristics, but only few of them use them so brilliantly, that the effect on the listener is strong, clear, but yet unobvious and varied. I think that the best of them is Imaginary Sonicscape by Sigh. The title suggests what you can expect from it, but probably not the greatness of it all.

This “sonicscape” is what sucks you in immediately as you start playing the album. Sigh don’t care if you are prepared or not. They greet you with extremely catchy riffs right away. What can be felt since hearing the first riff is that the music sounds more like heavy metal, than, what somebody new to Sigh could expect more, black metal. There’s a lot of catchiness and melody here and, as it might seem, very little darkness or mysticism. But once you go deeper into the record, hear the vocals, read the lyrics, analyze the melodies, you realize that this piece of art is really dark and filled with pain and bitterness. But all of it is disguised in a cover of sweetness, catchiness and happiness. This makes this record be out of any genre or mood labels and boundaries. It’s a style of its own, a world of its own and a league of its own.