Hanging Garden – Isle of Bliss
Release Date: 20th March 2026
Label: Agonia Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Death/Doom, Melodic Death Metal, Progressive Doom, Gothic Metal.
FFO: Swallow the Sun, In Mourning, Katatonia, Ghost Brigade, Insomnium, My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost, Myrkur.
Review By: Rick Farley
Finnish melancholy in all fashions of metals many genres is a contrasting taste of the immersive darkness of emotional anguish. The intense awareness of life’s inherent fragility and the soundscape that present these emotions through the throes of doomy atmospheres, low gutturals, soothing cleans, colossal walls of crushing guitars and ethereal flourishes that add dreamlike mystery to the ever present shadows that lie within confines of one’s own haunted consciousness.
The sorrowful approach from death/doom septet Hanging Garden on the bands ninth full length album Isle of Bliss takes a different, conscious effort to be more sinister, darker, and perhaps even at times, more dreamlike with airy vocal passages, dreamy synths and emotive aspects that coexist with its heavier, more raw metal side. The band hasn’t drastically changed their sound but rather added deeper layers of darkened musicality from aggressive heaviness to a stronger sense of gloom. It’s no less melancholic and beautiful, but it’s surely nastier this time around. The introduction of blackened elements and the use of Riikka’s ungodly screams coinciding with her usual silky voice and Toni’s low gutturals add extra layers of chilling menace which complement the bands classic solemnity. A heavier, hookier approach to the guitar riffs and rhythm foundation also amps up the levels of deathly bone crushing. The equipoise of the band’s sound on Isle of Bliss is fragile yet further leaning as more brutal than ever before. Throughout their discography you’ll find these core emotional elements present everywhere, just at differing levels of intensity, but you’ll also find a profound willingness to evolve those sounds towards outward growth, veining in different directions like a weaving branch from the same structural foundation.
“The album’s themes revolve around the spiritual aspects of life, death, and the liminality in between. The landscape shift from the introspection of one’s core self, traveling past dense forests and deathless isles – all the way to the vast and distant infinities of dying stars and the vast and eternal voids spun between.”
Isle of Bliss is a progressive journey filled album, dipping in the serene waters of the spellbinding with the tasking navigation it takes to remain afloat within the savagery of the water’s abyssal depths. The records weight feels massive in scope with the ability to only see up to the consuming fog knowing that just past the immeasurable mist lies its potential horrors or its vitalizing blessings.
Eternal Trees of Turquoise is a fitting example of the juxtaposition of this unsettling balance. Its gothic, luscious, ethereal atmosphere is poisoned by growls and piercing blackened raspiness. Almost if the two vocalists are vying for some form of dark power. The shimmering guitars drip with post metal airiness, while layers of bleakness and yearning coexist with bewitching melodies and wicked malice. The Death Upon Our Shoulders takes a gnarlier death metal approach before landing on an incredibly dreamy passage of gorgeous female cleans with a hook that’s hopeful as well as triumphant. It nails the aesthetic of light and dark so well you’ll organically shift your emotions within every seamless change of the track’s mood. The bands defining attributes of patient melodies and sheer sense of self, shine brightly on album closer Beneath the Fallen. The culmination of every aspect of the bands musical arsenal masterfully painting a glorious sounding ending to a fantastic album. The rich vocal harmonies, airy synths and foundational heaviness drive the track towards pure bliss abruptly ending with a futuristic, noisy buzz which forces the question of “what’s next to come?”
Hanging Garden has gifted us with a beautifully dark, heavy album that will remain with me for a considerable amount of time. I would not be shocked even a little to see this on many lists at the end of the year. The magnitude of how good Isle of Bliss really is cannot be expressed solely with just words. This needs to be heard.
(5 / 5)
