Search - Nightsky Bequest :: Sea Wind & Farewell

Soft, Beautiful, Mesmerising Unorthodox Metal

Stephen B. O'Blenis | Nova Scotia, Canada | 11/24/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Nightsky Bequest appears to be one of the more unknown bands on the planet, and that's truly regrettable, because judging by "Of Sea, Wind & Farewell" they're one of the world's best. A totally unique experience, the closest comparisons might be The Gathering, Blackmore's Night, maybe Within Temptation or the more esoteric Skyclad stuff, but there's still a mile of distinction between Bequest and any of those great bands. Definately a metal band but an innovative evolution of the form, with mostly acoustic rather than electric guitars and truly amazing, mesmerising percussion (not just druming - there's lots of great drums but apparantly other instruments used for percussion too, creating effects I've never heard before), quality bass, soft, tender female vocals and, used a fair bit less frequently, death-metalish (but somehow non-aggressive) male vocals, quality use of synthesiser on one track, some of the best flute music I've ever heard, and magnificent, crystal-clear production. The lyrics are enigmatic; metaphysical, often nature-based odes mixing melancholy and some hope; even in the bleakest-lyriced songs though it never becomes depressing or even sad - the music is just too hypnotically beautiful to allow that to happen. On future albums (or previous ones for that matter; I've never managed to hear even a single track off their earlier releases) I'd love for them to do some love songs; I feel the enchanting, often highly sensual music, and singer Radoslava Dikanska's vocal style would lend themselves perfectly to that kind of thing. I'd also love to hear them do a couple of songs in Bulgarian (that's where they're from); I've a couple of other bands doing Bulgarian vocals on the internet, and the language goes really well with different styles of metal (and presumably other forms of music too, I guess - the ones I heard were metal).



A great album all the way through; it's apparantly pretty hard to find now, and I don't know which (if any) countries it's currently in print in. Hopefully at some point this album and the rest of the Nightsky Bequest catalogue will get a proper global release, it certainly deserves to. One of the very best atmosheric metal albums ever."