Sigh – Goh-Ka
Release Date: 4th September 2026
Label: Peaceville
Bandcamp
Genre: Psychedelic, Progressive Metal, Avant-Garde Black Metal.
FFO: Mr. Bungle, Imperial Triumphant, Arcturus.
Review By: Jeff Finch
To try and explain the chaos contained within a Sigh record and why it’s so alluring, one would likely start with a big sigh, understanding the difficulty that lies ahead. Because Sigh, while foundationally a black metal band, cannot be pigeonholed or explained in simple terms, avant-garde even proving to be too weak and not nearly expressive enough. This review will not provide a resolution to the conundrum, as it doesn’t matter, because this new record, Goh-Ka, does that for us by not telling us but instead showing us.
When I say avant-garde just doesn’t do it justice, it’s true, as there is no descriptor whose umbrella is large enough for Sigh to be completely covered. Sigh’s music is like black metal being fed through a psychedelic, theatrical, orchestral sifter, the crazy chunks left out but all the sounds blended together in a bowl of utter madness. At no point on this record was the next note predictable, no song sounding the same yet all sounding exactly like a Sigh track, whatever that really means. Tracks bring some absolutely filthy, stank face riffs, as Sigh always does, while whole songs can be completely antithetical to themselves by the time the track is over.
The paradox of Sigh is what makes them so captivating, the bizarre thing that their songs can sound like they’re from entirely different genres, eras, or even bands, yet there’s an unmistakable Sigh DNA running through all of them and Goh-Ka in particular rams the point home from the very onset. Every track seems to inhabit its own little universe, psychedelic, progressive, blackened, theatrical, orchestral, downright bizarre, but somehow every single one is unmistakably Sigh.
Unputenpu is rife with heavy riffs and warped by psychedelia, Jinmenjushin sees the band in a cinematic universe light years from their black metal extremes, Kuso-shi 4, 5, and 6 is compositionally rather sophisticated, the truest sign that these songs aren’t just cobbled together, and Kuso-shi 8 and 9_Mettaijakujo doesn’t even sound like Sigh, acting as one of the least, and yet most, conventionally Sigh-sounding songs, if such a thing actually exists. They’ve got thrash, opera, middle eastern melodies, wicked stop start beats, spacey synths that made me feel like I was watching any number of Sci-Fi Channel made for TV movies. This is not meant as an insult, the very existence of it within the song is incredible, the sheer audacity of throwing it into, and ending, the song the most Sigh thing imaginable. Couple that with the myriad ways of describing the rest of the track, and you’ve got yourself an epic the likes of which the uninitiated might never quite grasp in full; hell, even us initiated are still probably staring at our stereos.
But Jeff, you may cry, what makes you enjoy it so much if it so brazenly eschews any form of traditional entertainment? The answer: it’s because it’s batshit crazy. The band knows it’s batshit crazy, it’s batshit crazy written extremely tightly and with laser focus, and because it’s batshit crazy like I hear absolutely nowhere else.
Having trouble deciding what genre to listen to today? Throw on Goh-Ka and listen to them all in one shot. It’s going to be the most interesting listen of your month, at least, and it’s uncompromising in its end goal: to cram as many genres, ideas, and musical left turns as humanly possible into one album and make you ask “what the fuck am I listening to?” at least once per song.
(4.5 / 5)
