Review Summary: Happy, optimistic music for emotionally stable people
For those unfamiliar, Bosse-de-Nage are a San Francisco band that have been quietly making some of the most interesting post-black metal of the last fifteen years. Their early albums already blended black metal with math rock, post-metal, and post-rock influences — bands like Slint are often cited as a comparison point — which gave their music this weird, tense, literary quality. But the band really broke through in the underground with their 2015 album
All Fours. That record came out right when bands like Deafheaven were pushing the whole blackgaze movement into the spotlight. But while Deafheaven’s sound was huge, warm, and almost euphoric, Bosse-de-Nage were doing something much colder, rawer, stripped down and uncomfortable.
After radio silence for eight years, we finally get
Hidden Fires Burn Hottest, the band’s sixth full-length album. And honestly, that long gestation period kind of shows as this album feels very
deliberate. From the very first seconds of the opener
“Where to Now?”, the band wastes absolutely no time easing you in. The first thing you hear is basically this huge anguished UGH — and you’re in. The guitars start grinding away with these heavy, thudding grooves that feel like repeatedly smashing your head against a wall. Which is a pretty fitting introduction to the emotional tone of this record. Because this album thrives on tension with little to no release or catharsis - just more tension. Across the album, the band constantly builds these huge emotional and sonic crescendos… only to pull back right before the explosion. That might sound frustrating — because sometimes it is — but it’s also clearly intentional. It's to music keep you on edge, anxious and uncomfortable.
Musically, the band is still operating within their signature mix of black metal, post-metal, and post-rock textures. You’ve got plenty of classic black metal ingredients here: tremolo-picked riffs, blast beats, frantic guitars, and bass that just hums and vibrates beneath everything. A lot of songs move between quiet, subdued sections and bursts of intensity.
“In the Name of the Moth” builds this incredible sense of anticipation in the bridge with the guitars layering up and subtle leads creeping in the background.
Vocally, Bryan Manning is delivering one of the most emotionally raw performances on any metal album this year. These are not your typical black metal shrieks, instead it sounds like someone who is being physically and mentally tortured. He sounds exhausted and frustrated. And I love how poetic and enigmatic the lyrics are on this album. Take
“Mementos” which the band themselves described as a love song (grizzliest ***ing love song I've heard in a minute). The lyrics describe the main character dismantling himself — literally cutting off his hair and limbs and placing them in a box belonging to a lover — and needing to be rebuilt. Which sounds horrifying… but it also kind of reads like a metaphor for losing yourself in a relationship and needing to reconstruct your identity afterward. It and many other tracks also feature these great spoken-word passages that add this eerie, almost literary quality.
The middle of the album has some of my favorite moments.
“No Such Place” explores this idea of a location that doesn’t exist… but also somehow does — a metaphor for feelings or thoughts everyone experiences but can’t quite define. Then you’ve got
“Underwater” which opens at this almost (dare I say) upbeat tempo musically — until you realize the lyrics are using being underwater as a metaphor for being forced to live at a slower pace than everyone else around you, like you’re being crushed by the pressure of it. I dig how the bass is especially prominent on that track and the riffs lean almost into post-hardcore territory. Later on
“Frenzy” delivers one of the album’s most intense moments. The song describes this bizarre dance everyone partakes in but no one can remember how or why it started, where some people are lifted up and celebrated while others are thrown into a bonfire. A pretty clear allegory for the inequality in our social systems. It breaks into this ominous noise section before exploding into one of the heaviest passages on the album.
Then you get the closing track
“Leviathan”. The parable tells the story of a whale dragging itself onto a beach and dying while onlookers gather around to watch. Which I interpreted as commentary on society’s numbness to suffering — the way tragedy becomes spectacle rather than something we have to actually reckon with. Musically it’s one of the most dramatic songs here, as we even get these sad violin lines toward the end that push the tension higher and higher, until finally the album gives you a brief moment of catharsis with this explosive ending.
If I had one real criticism, though, it’s that this album doesn’t drastically expand the band’s sound. It very much feels like a continuation from where they left off on
Further Still. And after an eight-year wait, I was maybe hoping for a few more surprises. Not necessarily a reinvention — but maybe a couple of unexpected left turns. Instead, what we get is a very refined version of the Bosse-de-Nage formula.
Overall,
Hidden Fires Burn Hottest is a deeply tense, bleak, emotionally crushing record. It’s an album that constantly builds anxiety and stress, keeping the listener in this state of unresolved tension. The songwriting is strong and the performances are fantastic. If you like bands operating somewhere in that intersection of black metal, post-metal, and atmospheric post-rock… there’s a lot here to get your teeth into.
Full video review - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxScDn1fI6g
