Old School and Airtight: Sigh's London Set at Downstairs at the Dome Proves Less Can Be More

Sigh needs no introduction if you know your black metal history, but for anyone walking in cold, this is the Tokyo band that caught Euronymous’s ear back in 1992, got signed to his label Deathlike Silence, and released their debut Scorn Defeat in 1993, just after his death. More than thirty years later, Mirai Kawashima, Dr. Mikannibal and Nozomu Wakai are still finding new ways to unsettle and delight in equal measure. Tonight at Downstairs at the Dome in London, they are stripped back to a trio, Dr. Mikannibal sitting this one out, for what is billed as an “old school set,” reaching back to the Scorn Defeat and Hail Horror Hail era.

Craven Idol

There are bones across the stage before the band appears, setting up the ritualistic tone that suits the whole night. Craven Idol opens with “Demons” and doesn’t let up much from there, working through “Venomous,” “Iron Age” and “Forked” with a non-stop force that feels less like a warm-up act and more like a headline act. There’s real force in the vocals, paired with a thrashy edge to the riffing that gives the set more power than a lot of opening acts manage. By the time they closed out with “Black Flame” and “Nadir,” the venue was already quite hot and the anticipation for Sigh piled up.

Sigh

When Sigh finally took the stage, the crowd was already anxious as they knew that it was going to be a unique experience, since they’ve played this set only at 2 festivals this year and will move into the more traditional tour. They open with “Izuna,” and from there, the set moves through “Shingontachikawa” and “The Zombie Terror” without much room to catch your breath. The trio format strips away some of what usually makes a Sigh concert, but not all, we still had the “Flaming Sword” and some blood pouring on Nozomu halfway through the night, since no Sigh show would exist without the theatrical and horror factor. The focus, though, sits squarely on the classics and the history behind them.

The real moment arrives with “Curse of Izanagi,” a track from Hail Horror Hail, the band hasn’t played live in close to two decades. It’s the kind of surprise that very few were expecting, but was very welcome, making the audience realize that’s a one in a time opportunity for those who were there. There’s no big fanfare around it, a brief announcement and the song itself doing the work. By the time the set closes on “Black Metal,” blunt and almost funny as a title until you remember how much real weight this band carries in that genre’s early story, the whole room feels like it’s been let in on something.

For a show built around old material, it didn’t feel like a nostalgia play, but more on a band that has such a deep catalogue and dedicated fanbase that they can deliver that without any issues.. Sigh are not done yet, either: they have just kicked off a run that takes them through Fire in the Mountains in Montana before dates in Seattle, Portland, Sacramento, Berkeley and Los Angeles, their first proper US tour in twenty years, before heading back across Europe in September for stops in Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany. The new album Goh-ka is on the way, too, so this is very much a band mid-chapter rather than looking backwards. If you get the chance to catch either leg, take it. And if Craven Idol is anywhere near you before then, get there early. They earned their spot on this bill.