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Tokyo-based black metal band Sigh recently stopped by BB King's on a rare US tour, perhaps to follow up on the press they've gotten for their new EP of all Venom covers. Despite rarely making it to the states, signing to affluent avant-metal label The End and getting a tour sponsorship from premier metal blog Metalsucks, barely 30 or so metalheads made it out to the show. The result was a sparse, pathetic mosh pit and no crowd-surfing room at all, but the fiery performances from Sigh and openers Unexpect gave no quarter, and the handful of dedicated fans present were happy to indulge them.

Montreal's Unexpect, another envelope-pushing End Records act, melded Mr. Bungle-inspired freakouts, klezmer instrumentation, prog and death metal exchanges and a cinematic jazz-minded, almost Danny Elfman-esque sense of song. Producing the a-level musicianship minus the excessive low end demonstrated on their newest album, In a Flesh Aquarium, Unexpect thrashed out a distinct, impressive din highlighted at a breakneck pace. Despite their considerable skills, Unexpect were sometimes overwhelmed by their musical capabilities and knack for weirdness, which blended some of their songs into a convoluted mess. Still, although Unexpect's amalgamation of sounds aren't as challenging or enjoyable as labelmates Sleepytime Gorilla Museum or Estradasphere, they're clearly a promising, exciting band.



Sigh, who've become increasingly avant-garde on their past two studio albums, Gallows Gallery and Hangman's Hymn, offer catchy songs with memorable choruses with no sign of the droning alterna-metal that many their countrymen in Mono and Boris prefer. The band's experimental side lies in their arrangements, especially considering the circus-worthy saxophone and keyboard riffing from Sigh's vocalists. Bandleader Mirai Kawashima, a short, pokerfaced howler in goth attire, provided the night's most comprehensible singing, while his fetching foil Dr. Mikannibal out-growled him all night, providing a startling death metal howl that matched the band's unrelenting of speed and apocalyptic compositions.

Despite their symphonic arrangement, Sigh are a raw-sounding outfit, both on their underproduced studio albums and in their shows. While clearly talented musicians, the band plays relatively simple, fast music, held together by a rhythm section that owes more to punk than Sigh's blast beat contemporaries. But like any good metal band, Sigh have no pretenses about not enjoying themselves onstage, and the band's showy singers indulged all their black metal fantasies, spewing tales of sorcery and Satan while engaging the fervent fans in the front row. Proving themselves better than ever in their 18-year-career, Sigh concluded their first set with Hangman's Hymn tracks "Death with Dishonor," "Me-Devil" and "Inked in Blood," an eccentric, cult-metal playlist that was accompanied by some pretty kooky dance moves from Kawashima and Mikannibal.



Encoring with Venom's "Black Metal," Sigh ushered as much of a mosh pit as one could expect in the mostly-empty venue. Hearing them tear through a trend-setting usher of thrash and death metal, it was clear that Sigh are in the position that Venom were in decades ago--stylish, seriously campy, and fantastically inventive, whether or not it's going to take a while for a large audience to appreciate it.