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Hexis – XII

Hexis – XII

Hexis have been impressing me ever since Abalam back in 2014. Their splits with This Gift is a Curse (2015) and Primitive Man (2015) introduced me to both of those bands, and they've always been part of the best in the catastrophic, dissonant blackened scenes.

XII is similar to previous albums, with their classic suffocating sound of tremolo-picked pieces of hatred and despair staying untouched. That being said, there are some slightly heavier elements, as well as slightly more focussed songwriting which help XII stand out.

Hexis has the habit of writing very short songs, but quite a few of them – it almost feels as if they divided their albums into chapters rather than wrote individual pieces. Everything flows, there are no breaks or interludes – it's a grindcore-esque approach to black metal, except with actual continuity between songs. By doing this, they turn their albums into dense, impenetrable slabs of hatred in which one must either dive and abandon control, or avoid altogether.

The album feels like it was written as one long entity, and has the dynamics to back that up. Stop/start rythms, pummeling introductions running straight into walls of cold anger, floating zeniths of relative peace and deep caverns of uncomfortable heaviness – XII has everything to keep you occupied during its entire duration. It's actually tiring to keep up with everthing, given how goddamn punishing each indidual section is.


The drums have a clearer sound than they did in previous records, which actually changes the general feel quite a bit – instead of our old subwoofer kicks and comfortable blasts giving the whole experience a more ritualistic aspect, we've got well-produced bass drums and cymbals. XII feels like Hexis have stopped dancing around the fire and actually started torturing people.



Giuseppe Fitzsimmons
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