Hexvessel – Polar Veil Review

A few years ago, I proved that you can in fact judge a record by its cover, at least where genre is concerned. When Dear Hollow posted the art for Polar Veil in the staff room, my immediate reaction was that I was too Hexvesselled out to review another. Their weird, whimsical folk-psychedelia is right in my wheelhouse, but by album five, I was starting to feel that they’d run out of ideas. But I couldn’t stop looking at the art, with its great looming figure over a little snowy village. It’s wildly different in style from their previous albums. In metal, of course, snow and ice are associated with the icy, biting sound of black metal. And indeed, this is exactly what we get: Hexvessel are one step away from slathering on the corpse paint.

This isn’t fully a black metal record per se. Harsh vocals and blast beats only really show up on one song each (“Older Than the Gods” and “Homeward Polar Spirit” respectively). The production is richer. But the guitar is straight out of, say, Emperor, both in tone and in shimmering, tremolo composition. This is merged pretty directly with standard Hexvessel. The folksy melodic writing and turns of phrase wouldn’t be out of place on any of their other albums. The drums are mostly laid-back and ritualistic. And Mat McNerney’s wandering, hypnotic vocals, which I’ve always enjoyed, are much the same as ever.

The more interesting question is whether this mashup works for them. The combination of soft clean singing and cutting guitars is slightly jarring—harsh vocals are typically there for a reason. And black metal is not a genre renowned for its wellspring of innovation—just slapping some guitars from the 90s on does not automatically make an interesting record. It’s a far more limited sonic palette than their older work. The songs struggle to differentiate from each other. But I’ve ended up enjoying Polar Veil more than the last album. The more I’ve listened, the more the composition has sounded like Hexvessel. The new sound has freed them from the sense of retreading the same ground I got on their last couple of records.

On the black metal side, the harsh vocal crescendo of “Older Than the Gods” is great, and tantalizes a sound the rest of Polar Veil doesn’t really deliver. This is probably the best overall song here, with the whole buildup from wordless chant through to the crescendo being excellent. “A Cabin in Montana”‘s heavy trem guitars also work, though the best bit of this one is the insistent refrain of “…and speaks to the world—freedom!” The fragile vocals on “Listen to the River” work surprisingly well combined with one of the more vicious guitar tones on the record. Both that and “The Tundra is Awake” end with very Hexvesselly creepy, pretty outros. Notably, all the songs I’ve mentioned there are from the first half. The second has its highlights as well—the lonely lead trading off with the rest of the band on “Ring,” for example. But by this point, I’m starting to run out of patience.

The problem with Polar Veil is ultimately the insistence on sitting quite so firmly on the fence between true black metal and Hexvessel’s more traditional sound for the entire record. There are plenty of cool moments, and the neat turns of their songwriting are still present here. But the homogeneity is a drag. By “Crepuscular Creatures” I’m getting tired of the relentless guitars, especially without heavier drums and vocals to back them up. Had it been more explicitly black metal in places, and used their traditional forest folk sound for contrast in others, Polar Veil could have been a lot more interesting.

Rating: Mixed
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Svart Records
Websites: hexvessel.bandcamp.com | hexvessel.com | facebook.com/hexvessel
Releases Worldwide: September 22nd, 2023