HEMELBESTORMER // THE RADIANT VEIL - BLINDED BY LIGHT LONG SLEEVE SHIRT

HEMELBESTORMER have been a commanding entity in the heavy music scene for over 10 years, with their idiosyncratic take on the merger of post-rock, doomgaze, and black metal. Made up of veterans from the Belgian hardcore and metal community, the four-piece from Hasselt, Belgium create intricate sonic journeys through space and time, built over punishing riffs and spine-chilling climaxes.

With their fourth full-length The Radiant Veil, HEMELBESTORMER take their songwriting and production to new heights, honouring their name as trailblazers on the intersection of dark and light—the crushingly heavy and the hauntingly beautiful.

Having appeared at many of Europe’s finest music festivals—including Roadburn, Dunk! Festival, and Graspop Metal Meeting—HEMELBESTORMER feel right at home on stages with a wide variety of heavy, experimental, and ethereal acts. The road combining ethereal post-rock with seething black metal has been travelled by many, but with HEMELBESTORMER, that winding path has taken a different turn.

Facing away from shoegaze or indie rock influences, the band finds a more sophisticated way of incorporating unsettling melodies, blast beats, and lo-fi synthesizers to emulate the dark void of space and the eerie, cold light of stars.

“The record is a journey through our solar system as perceived by the Etruscan civilization,” explains drummer Frederik Cosemans about the album’s enigmatic song titles. “Each track bears the name of a planet in the old Etruscan language, starting with the Sun (Usil) and ending with Saturn (Satre).”

Powered by HM-2 pedals and a Lovecraftian use of retro synths, The Radiant Veil is driven by an old-school mentality that appears both learned and sincere. Produced by main songwriter Filip Dupont alongside Cosemans, the eerie space noises coalesce like a celestial respiration between the bouts of metallic riffing and tremolo-picked passages. By playing with different textures and references, they place the band’s metallic expeditions in unique atmospheric contexts—such as conjuring waves of cosmic crickets on Cel or slowing down the journey amid showers of pristine Blade Runner-inspired synth lines on Laran.

Album opener Usil is a compositional masterpiece from start to finish, combining seismic riffing with ice-cold guitar leads—like Russian Circles formed in a small Norwegian fishing town in the early '90s. Meticulously building up to a double kick-driven finale, the band lay the groundwork for an hour of transformative music.

The following track, Turms, continues to demonstrate the band’s penchant for weaving glorious melodies, with a soaring overture leading to a driving mid-section featuring Philip Jamieson of Caspian.

“Our guitarist Jo has been friends with Caspian for years, so a collaboration had to come about at some point,” continues Cosemans. “Philip did a fantastic job in the studio and really managed to add his own signature.”

Jamieson’s vocals work wonderfully in the music of HEMELBESTORMER, sitting snugly within the composition, which subtly mimics his vocal lines in the subsequent up-tempo bridge. With its blistering guitar lead breaking down into a gritty halftime section, Turms is one of the prime examples where The Radiant Veil proves its metal pedigree.

A new journey into the unknown, The Radiant Veil listens more like the soundtrack to a video game than a movie. The riffing grants a sense of being in control and on the move, creating an exceptionally entrancing experience. Amid its violent perspirations and bloodcurdling noises, The Radiant Veil captures a natural sophistication, proving their lengthy tenure as a signature post-metal act.

The compositions are winding without overstaying their welcome, and the album's production is fat, warm, and honest. The lyrical quotations from William Wordsworth (Cel) and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Satre) are traditional yet tasteful. The artful krautrock and psytrance stylings on Tiur and Satre will satisfy more avant-garde-oriented listeners.

HEMELBESTORMER are a sight to behold on stage, and with The Radiant Veil, they penetrate deeper than ever into the farthest reaches of their sonic space ethos. Once more, the Belgians capture the cavernous expanse between the cold lights of the universe and our human power to explore it—proving their greatness as masterclass storytellers in sight and sound.

TRACKLIST:

Side A:
1. Usil
2. Turms (feat. Philip Jamieson of CASPIAN)

Side B
3. Turan
4. Tiur

Side C:
5. Cel
6. Laran

Side D:
7. Tinia
8. Sartre