HAIL SPIRIT NOIR from Thessaloniki in Greece are active since 2010 and present their third full-length already in form of "Mayhem In Blue". Their style is a weird mixture of Psychedelic Rock, 70s Prog Rock, Dark Metal and Black Metal. Their music can be described as a Metal version of the soundtrack of the old Star Trek TV episodes or the German version Raumpatrouille Orion based on Black Metal roots. Just kidding a bit but it really sounds very 70s influenced like a big party of members of KING CRIMSON, THE DOORS with some really strange spacy sounds and occasionally appearing Black Metal elements incorporated in their sound. The opener ‘I Mean You Harm’ takes a while to work out but latest with track two, the title track ‘Mayhem In Blue’, the band manages successfully to take the listener back into the 70s. The third track ‘Riders To Utopia’ shows some Black Metal roots again but still sounds like the soundtrack of a new Austin Powers movie.The remaining three tracks are on a similar level and very spacy. The instrumentation sounds 70s like but with a modern painting and has an overall good production. These guys are very talented even though their stuff will be hard to dig for the most people and after some spins in the evening hours I started enjoying these crazy guys from Greece, who surely had several bottles of wine, writing and rehearsing this stuff. An outstanding track for me and worth to check out is ‘Lost In Satan’s Charms’. Fans of OPETH should give these crazy guys a chance and check their new album out which comes up with a cool and really crazy cover artwork. More info can be found at the following locations: www.facebook.com/pages/hail-spirit-noir/260062670728238, www.darkessencerecords.no