Hex – God Has No Name

Band: Hex
Title: God has no Name
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Release Date: 05 July 2019
Country: Spain
Format Reviewed: High-quality Digital Recording

Some doom metal is good to pick from time to time. It’s usually mellow and easy listening material which I quite enjoy if it’s done right and I was rather interested when I noticed that HEX had released their new album, “God has no Name”, on the 5th of July.

Their debut album, “Deadly Sin”, was released in 2014 and since then only a demo was released in 2017, so by now, it was time to hear a new full-length album from these guys.

I think it’s safe to say that the first part of the album was placed right inside the box. “Thy Kingdom Gone”, “Soulsculpter” and “Worshipping Falsehood” all have a certain feel to it, not particularly at doom-metal-speed but easy enough to listen to and performed well. What they seemed to all have in common was the two to three different segment parts. One slow, one fast, and one that was just different, and as I was done with the first three tracks, I realized I was being reminded of that moment when Goro first came out to fight Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat.

“Where Gods shall not Reign” properly took this record off the ground. The antitheism really shines through with the speeches underneath the music, and yet the Egyptian scale exists which sounds like they are trying to charm snakes into headbanging. Further walls break down as female vocals are added to the mix and I couldn’t help but think that perhaps this track should have been earlier on the record.

With a bit more polished production, the old school death metal and the healthy dose of trash in “Apocryphal” could have been the peak of the record. Surely I was reminded of Rotting Christ a few times throughout the listening and I sort of wanted to hear perhaps some layered choirs in the background, but then again, that would have been in a rather different direction than this band has devoted themselves to. And I can’t really judge a band by not sounding like another band, now can I?

“All Those Lies that Dwells…” was my personal favorite. In a fine way, the record was closed with thick vocals and Dimebag-groovy riffing, but the loudest thought in my head was that the lineup of the tracks should have been reversed. The easy-listening, simple, relaxed “inside the box” sound of the first half is perhaps not strong enough to lure the listener in, which would really be a shame because the second half is well worth the attention. But who knows, perhaps that is exactly what they were going for. In a way, the record does grow in sound and vocals as the tracks go on, and I suppose it’s better to go uphill than downhill, isn’t it? 6/10 Julia

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