Review: Hạc San – Hồn – Trăng – Máu

Style: traditional prog metal (clean, Vietnamese vocals)
Recommended for fans of: 90s Dream Theater, IQ, Rush
Review by: Sam
Country: Vietnam
Release date: 12 April, 2020

NOTE: This review was originally included in the 2nd April 2020 edition of The Progressive Subway.

Surely this is the best last minute find ever? I was bored and started browsing albums from a random month we haven’t covered. I ended up checking November 2015 albums and a band from Vietnam called Hạc San caught my eye. And lucky for me, it appeared they had a new album out precisely in the month I was reviewing (aka April 2020). Now I have never heard any music from Vietnam, and most certainly not any progressive metal, so I’m just as surprised as you are that I can already say that this will likely be my album of the year. Yes you read that correctly.

Hồn – Trăng – Máu consists of one 29 minute song, which already hints at the ambition of this band. And hot DAMN do they pull it off. This band just does everything right. The melodies are just beautiful and instantly grabbing, both musically and vocally (which is an even bigger feat considering the lyrics are in Vietnamese and I don’t know a single word in that language). They have an excellent grasp of themes required to make such a long song work. It’s like Dream Theater were actually tasteful composers. The music is very warm and romantic. The vocals are sweet and the synths constantly surround you like a cosy blanket. It’s barely even a metal song, but man are the guitars good. The atmosphere they do is amazing, the riffs (when they exist) are great and MAN the solos. This band can do it all. The only thing preventing me from slapping a 10/10 on this outright is that the snare tone is really jarring and doesn’t mix well at all with the rest of the music. But for the rest, man, album of the year. If you have any love for melodic prog metal, go listen to this. You will not regret it.

Recommended tracks: it’s one song
You may also like: Venus in Fear, Althea, Shadow Gallery
Final verdict: 9.5/10

Related links: Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page

Label: Independent

Hạc San is:
– Jean Paul Blada (vocals)
– Dzung Pham (guitars)
– Tran Thang (bass)
– Yvol Enuol (drums)