Blackened Chamber Music? Orchestral Blackgaze? Progressive Black Metal? Unreqvited‘s answer: “Yes, please. And loads of it!” The one-man-prog-Blackgaze project from Canada returns better than ever. More diverse than before. More of everything. Without sacrificing the track! I am awestruck!
It is mid-February, I have by now listened to nearly 50 new records from 2025 and I am amazed that every week my AotY contender circle seems to be shaken up. The newly added contender of the week? Unreqvited, a project that has been on my literal watch-list for years now. We do not know a lot about the project, even though there is a picture on the Bandcamp page, but then again – who knows if that is the person behind the band in the day and age of AI? 鬼 (Ghost) wants to remain somewhat of an unknown, so why dig deeper? I will no bother to, as long as we get this level of soundscapes in such a breathtaking short interval – the first sign of life was 2016’s debut record Disquiet (out on Pest Productions back then) and counting A Pathway to the Moon we have gotten seven full-lengths, 5 split releases (with such amazing bands as Sylvaine, Sadness, Show Me A Dinosaur, Asunojokei, Violet Cold and multiple more), several EPs or singles, nearly 20 releases in nine years! And one better than the other – the same with the new seven-song epic (eight if you get a copy with the Hans Zimmer-cover ”Cornfield Chase” from his Interstellar soundtrack).
The major difference to the many releases before is the general idea of writing these tracks for the stage - had 鬼 before not thought of playing live a lot, there was a change of heart before this record so basically all tracks can be played live with his backing band; let’s just hope he plays near us, right? Thus these 43 minutes showcase all of the qualities we know from him, loads of anthemic hymns which want to be sung along to, sometimes during some neck-breaking blast-beat attacks, sometimes set against the background of a song or soundscape opening up towards the heaven, crawling from the dark into the light, from the black undergrowth towards the crown of the tree stretching out every limb reaching for the moon and the stars and beyond. Many times one will find a multitude of soundscapes underneath a song, synth passages to die for, vast and bright and yet one line is not enough, so 鬼 adds a few more, sometimes sparkling little dots, sometimes a counteractive couple of star-sand strewn into our eyes and ears. But not poisonous stuff like with Hamlet’s father but rather the energizing kind, like the water some of the hobbits drank on their journey to Mount Doom, refreshing them to the point of making them taller than they ever imagined. Just like the Ents in Tolkien’s epic, we hear find beings (aka songs) crushingly hard in certain moments just before the next turn adorns it with some wondrous little thing born out of thin air just with the help of love and care provided by 鬼.
Following the tracks along their voyage to something as mesmerizing as Dore’s Le voyage dans la Lune” we witness the mastermind embellishing his new tracks oftentimes with such wonderful harmonies that one might want to sit down and shed a tear in sight of so much, yes, beauty! Each Unreqvited song has had something to offer but the way that 鬼 embraces and incorporates all elements that might have been there before but never on such a highlight display is awe-infusing. When he then takes time to also encompass other, older styles like several classic heavy rock solos it becomes obvious that 鬼 has a lot to say. One should get a version including the lyrics because they definitely show another, pretty poetical side of this project – take the lyrics to ”Into the Starlit Beyond” for example:
”How do I know / Where my soul will go / Hollow my bones / to wander evermore in the unknown / Cradle me in the hand of God / Spirit departs into the starlit beyond”
Wonderfully delivered in many different vocal shades these lines becomes so much more. And when the track then ends on a single note from the piano, which is allowed to slowly fade, then there is nothing more to say than: Let’s all reach for the stars, now!
