So Hideous releasing 'Last Poem/First Light' (stream a track); Meek is Murder streaming a new track too

by Doug Moore

So Hideous

NYC’s own post-hardcore/black metal sluggers So Hideous (formerly So Hideous, My Love) have been hard at work on their new full-length effort, Last Poem/First Light. The band will self-release the album on October 22; we debuted a new song from the album over at Invisible Oranges this morning. You can stream it below. From our writeup:

So Hideous’s new album features textural support from a fifteen-piece strings-and-throats ensemble called The First Light Orchestra, and the band claims the 20th-century classical composers Phillip Glass and Arvo Part as influences.

It’s a stretch, and one that So Hideous doesn’t need to make. Their music — an even blend of hardcore, post-rock, and black metal — stands strong without the grandiose comparisons. Last Poem/First Light sounds tonally huge and powerful, which is important for such melodically delicate music. I typically find the combination of metal and classical ensemble arrangements hokey as all get-out, but it works remarkably well here. The softer textures enrich the guitars, rather than overwhelming them. The presence of both blastbeats and Envy-esque melodic striving ensure that So Hideous will be compared to a certain ubiquitous Californian two-piece. For my money, this is the more enjoyable album of the two.

Read the full writeup over at IO. As we mentioned last week, you can catch So Hideous with fellow NYC noiseslingers Meek is Murder at ABC No Rio on October 26. As mentioned, Meek Is Murder have a new album on the way and they just released a new song from it and you can stream that (via Terrorizer) in this post too.

Stream “My Light” and the Meek is Murder track below.