Hexvessel | Nocturne | Prophecy Productions

 

 Hexvessel is the brainchild of English musician Mat McNerney, known for his work in Code, Dødheimsgard, Beastmilk, and Grave Pleasures. Founded in Finland in 2009 following his relocation, Hexvessel has continually evolved, moving through phases of folk, rock, and experimental blackened psychedelia. While the band is anchored in Tampere, their sound wanders far beyond physical geography. Rooted in organic instrumentation and esoteric atmospheres, they inhabit a space that is both inward and distant, spiritual and hallucinatory.

"Nocturne" is Hexvessel’s seventh full-length offering, and it arrives as a fully realized extension of the commissioned "Music For Gloaming" work debuted at Roadburn Festival 2024. The album draws together strands from across their wide-reaching catalog into a somber and immersive sonic tapestry. The tonal palette favors grayscale textures—windswept acoustics, faint analog synths, and distant piano motifs—presented with restraint and patience. The production, handled by Jaime Gomez Arellano, avoids gloss or aggression in favor of clarity, giving the space needed for shadow and resonance to unfold.

The material on "Nocturne" flows like a single, meditative piece rather than ten segmented songs. Acoustic guitars shimmer faintly across minimal rhythmic pulses, while keys and choral harmonies drift like slow-form fog. There are undercurrents of melancholic grandeur in “Sapphire Zephyrs” and “Inward Landscapes,” as well as hypnotic dissonance in “Spirit Masked Wolf” and “Mother Destroyer.”

Vocals by Mat McNerney remain central, contemplative, and fluid—at times drifting into chant-like ritual and at others reaching for melodic archways that resemble art-rock crooning or even subdued black metal invocation. His voice is joined in key moments by collaborators such as Saara Nevalainen, adding ghostly harmony, and Yusaf Vicotnik Parvez, whose sharp timbre in “Unworld” brings a cold angular contrast. The closing “Phoebus” ends the album not with resolution, but with dispersal—an act of evaporating into a lingering twilight.

There is a sense of distance between the listener and the songs, not as an emotional barrier but as an intentional veiling. The instrumentation moves in and out of audibility, as if mimicking the movements of thought during late-night solitude. Hexvessel offers not a narrative or statement, but a ritual atmosphere—one that evokes late-autumn forests, frost-lit villages, and the psychic silence of being alone under stars.

This is not an album of climaxes. Rather, it is a constant state of dusk, guided more by intuition than structure. The listening experience gains through full immersion, ideally uninterrupted. The appearance of black metal is subtle but essential—glimpsed in certain vocal cadences, tremolo undercurrents, and emotional austerity, but never overtly foregrounded.

Score: 7.8