Masters of cross-pollinated underground metal for the last 35 years, SIGH have one of the most substantial and fascinating catalogues in all of heavy music. So many of the Japanese legends’ albums have been genuinely mind-blowing, that it has often seemed that Mirai and his comrades have been channeling something more than just music. As pretentious as it sounds, what SIGH deal in is fearlessly sophisticated dark art. But every musician has the right to some critical hindsight.

To celebrate their 35th anniversary, SIGH have completely re-recorded their 2007 conceptual opus “Hangman’s Hymn”. Although far from being the runt of the band’s recorded litter, Mirai has identified the album as one that failed to entirely meet the moment. Dissatisfied with the orchestral arrangements, his own vocals, and the album’s rather rudimentary drumming, he has taken the original compositions and given them an outright overhaul, with ex-FEAR FACTORY man Mike Heller fulfilling the drummer role, and brand-new orchestral elements that replace the original album’s frigid samples with real instrumentation. Re-recording cherished albums is always a risky business, and doubtless there will be a few miserable purists who object to this entire project, but within a few seconds, “I Saw The World’s End – Hangman’s Hymn MMXXV” is so obviously a vast improvement on its forebear that it seems highly unlikely that anyone will ever bother with the original again.

SIGH have never made it easy to define what they do, but “Hangman’s Hymn” was a particularly confounding statement when it first emerged. Steeped in the world of (primarily German) classical music, and the filthy and furious proto-death metal of bands like REPULSION and SARCÓFAGO, it was by far the band’s most intricate and sophisticated release.

This new version takes the essence of the original and expands upon every element. The result is an overwhelming show of strength, subversion and intelligence, wherein songs like “Inked In Blood” and “The Master Malice” are transformed from their muddled, original form, into gleaming behemoths of evil, psychedelic bombast. As his criticism of his own work suggested, Mirai‘s vocals are mercilessly on point throughout, inspired by newly sumptuous backdrops that revel in the fine details of SIGH‘s esoteric ensemble performances. It is all absurdly entertaining and, 18 years on from its first incarnation, resolutely contemporary. Those familiar with the original will be amazed by how the fine details leap out at every opportunity, how SIGH‘s unique strain of metal continues to defy time and trend, and how songs like “Death with Dishonor” now have the personality to stand head and shoulders with the best of the band’s past efforts. Those who have never had the pleasure before will simply have their heads blown off.

In much the same way that albums like “Imaginary Sonicscape” (2001) and “In Somniphobia” (2012) took SIGH into uncharted territory, “I Saw The World’s End – Hangman’s Hymn MMXXV” is a singular beast. The closing four-part suite encapsulates the fierce originality of the whole thing: starting with the neo-classical menace of “Overture”, SIGH stride purposefully through a dizzying otherworld of ornate but deeply nasty thrash, cinematic splendor and psychedelic prog metal, never pausing for breath and always hell-bent on making brains spin. “Rex Tremendae/I Saw The World’s End” is an absolutely vicious metal song, with one foot in the past and another in some warped, surreal future; “Salvation In Flame/Confutatis” is deeply eccentric and willfully theatrical, with classical pomposity butting skulls with horribly charred and blackened trad metal, delivered at rabid speed; and grand finale, “Hangman’s Hymn/In Paradisum/Das Ende” puts the seal on a job done brilliantly, with flurries of triumphant brass, whirlwind blastbeats and a heroically unhinged vocal from Mirai that must have left the poor man in an exhausted heap.

In contrast with its earlier manifestation, “I Saw The World’s End – Hangman’s Hymn MMXXV” is clearly what Mirai had in mind all along. This is a bold, ingenious and multi-faceted record, with more ideas per square inch than most metal bands conjure across entire careers. It was always a fantastic piece of work, but “Hangman’s Hymn” is reborn in glory here. SIGH are a very special band. Witness their madness and rejoice.