“Whatever happened to Bal-Sagoth??”, you say? Well…, when the insane mastermind of anything and everything Bal-Sagothian (Mr. Byron Roberts) decided to put the band on a very permanent hold back in 2013 to become a writer, poet, and whatever else…, it created a huge sad gap in the Symphonic Blackened Metal scene. Or did it…?
Here are three bands that have taken up the mantle, the Atlantean swords, the enchanted amulets of interstellar gods, and all of the other epic accouterments needed to continue the battle!
In the craft beer world, there is an unspoken but very much known thing that happens when a microbrewery or brewpub folds. It’s gear is picked up on the cheap by one or more up-and-coming brewing outfits. The brewers that are still motivated to make good beer for the masses branch out and form or join other breweries. For example, the collapse of Pacific Beach Brewhouse directly led to the formation of AleSmith. Baja Brewing’s gear contributed to founding of Alpine Beer Company. In The Gaslamp, Hang Ten Brewing (née Riptide Brewing, née Brewski’s) later morphed into Sport’s City Brewing, and it’s shuttering became the impetus for a number of other brewing careers here in San Diego. So what’s the point here? The point is that when one thing dies, it often can give rise to any number of newer (sometimes better) things later on.
So that having been said, what has sprung forth upon this plane of existence from the ashes of Bal-Sagoth? Behold!
Chronologically speaking, one of the first acts to pick up where Byron Roberts and co. left off is Zel Agganor, an 2017 one-man project from a certain Mr. Henry Mahy. Keep that name handy: he shows up later on in this epic tale of good vs. evil. His “Rise of the Black Star” E.P. ticks all of the boxes that you would expect from such a project: brooding instrumental intros that seamlessly meld with the riff-driven passages, symphonic underpinnings, keyboards a’plenty, and lyrics of extra-dimensional battles that turn the “Epic” dial to “Maximum Epic’ness”.
Vocals are bit more blackened than what you’re used to from later Bal-Sagoth – here they approximate what Mr. Roberts was doing early on with the “A Black Mood Broods Over Lemuria” debut. This guy’s clean vocals and spoken narrative voicing’s are 100% on target here, and provide quite a few different textures to the tapestry of each song.
As expected, the deep High Fantasy lyrics deserve a deep dive, worthy of their own footnotes and expanded commentary or maybe a graphic novel. Highly recommended.
Next up in this epic sword & sorcery stampede is 2018’s release of “Dreaming Spire”, from Hungary’s Runeshard. The band is clearly modeled after Bal-Sagoth in it’s prime, with overt symphonic nods to both “Battle Magic” and “The Power Cosmic”. This band is stylistically in lock-step to the theme of all of the bands mentioned here – the clean keyboards, the huge symphonic elements, the published lyrics telling a complex story that would fit into any proper D&D/Pathfinder RPG campaign, and so on.
The vocals – a key element in this sort of subset of Symphonic Blackened Metal, are on target for the most part. Variability is the name of the game, and the vocals vary nicely between brutal and clean vox and the obligatory spoken narrative snippets.
For their full-length follow-up “Shadowbane” in 2021, they enlisted the help of Henry Mahy of Zel Agganor (told you his name would pop up again). There is stylistically very little difference between the two iterations of the band and their vocals – you can play the two releases back-to-back and barely note the vox transition. Both of these are highly recommended.
So what about the rest of the Bal-Sagoth guys? What have they been up to, and where did they wind up when they finally got tired of waiting for vocalist-turned-novelist Byron Roberts to finish writing and LARP’ing and such?
Well, not unlike the aforementioned example of one defunct craft beer outfit leading to the formation other things, the entire band (less Roberts) rose from the ashes and moved on. They leveled up and printed off new character sheets, formed a new dungeoneering party named Kull, and in 2019 released “Exile”.
The fact that the ex-members of that group chose the Kull name is of course tied to the Robert E. Howard character that preceded Howard’s far more famous creation (Conan). That’s not just a nod to old-school hack & slash fantasy – Kull (the character) was said to be have been born and later exiled from Atlantis, and most of his stories are tied to that mythical land in one fashion or another. Now, as any B.S. fan worthy of their jewel-encrusted +1 Battle Thong of Badassery will tell you, the land of Atlantis plays a key role in the majority of the Bal-Sagothian tales scattered about all six albums. Kull’s “Exile” album was also originally intended to be Bal-Sagoth’s seventh album. So all of that ties together rather neatly.
While the name of the band and album bring strong old school hack&slash Robert E. Howard nerdiness cred to the discussion, the album “Exile” has a very interesting lyrical theme start to finish. Each song is a chapter in a tale that brings both epic fantasy and IRL British’ness into the fold. Not sure why you are hearing cannon fire in the background of “An Ensign Consigned”? Dig thee deep into thy lyrics and enjoy!
So how does the new vocalist work with the old ex-Bal-Sagoth guys? He’s not a direct Byron Roberts clone – his deathy/blackened vocals are a bit more visceral that what Mr. Roberts tended to do. And his all-important cleans and narrative stylings? They work well here, though they are perhaps a bit less bombastic than what would expect for this sort thing. That’s ultimately a good thing IMO – if he’s not 110% on board with such over-the-top bombast, then it would not have been a good fit. He’s clearly comfortable filling some rather large +2 Boots of Fantastical Epicness here, and does an excellent job here meshing perfectly with the scarred B.S. Level 15 veterans of a 1,001 sessions. Another album I wholeheartedly endorse and recommend.
So what’s the bottom line here? Like many things in life, when something dies, it can sometimes give rise to any number of newer/better/brighter things later on. With these bands carrying on to lead the charge, life after the death of Bal-Sagoth is still pretty damned bright, indeed!