Oi Magoi, the second album by Greek three-piece Hail Spirit Noir, is a strange album. It starts off sounding somewhat derivative of Clutch, full of loose grooves with warm guitar tones that aren’t too overdriven, but those comparisons are thrown out the window when Theoharis’s blackened, harsh vocals come in.
The result is not too dissimilar to Horseback, but Oi Magoi doesn’t click as immediately as Jenks Miller’s more meditative, psychedelic adventures. It can feel somewhat meandering initially, but halfway through the record, something clicks. Their classic rock/prog/ black metal bastardisation suddenly gels.
The latter part of Satyr’s Orgy is a pleasant, burbling Pink Floyd-style passage, and there’s a hint of The Wicker Man (the film, not the Iron Maiden song) about The Mermaid in its beginning, before it’s possessed by the spirit of the Edgar Winter Group, with guitar and keyboard solos everywhere. When the band let loose in this way, they make perfect sense.
It’s too hit-and-miss to be deemed a total triumph, but the latter half of Oi Magoi shows that Hail Spirit Noir are teeming with promise.
