Review: Crimson Veil – Hex

Style: Alternative metal, prog metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Ok Goodnight, Jinjer, Destiny Potato, Suldusk
Country: UK
Release date: 20 September 2024

I’ve said it before, but I’ve become the defacto reviewer for a lot of the UK prog scene, recently covering a bunch of young groups from the burgeoning alt metal scene, including Giant Walker, El Moono and Vower, all of whom follow in the footsteps of great bands like Black Peaks, Palm Reader and Arcane Roots. But is that all the UK has to offer?¹ Fortunately, no. I’d heard a couple of singles from a new group, Crimson Veil, who seemed to offer something darker, tinged with thickly layered gothic melodrama. Intrigued? I sure as hell was.

On debut album Hex, Crimson Veil carve out a unique little niche for themselves, playing with vast cinematic atmospheres, thick layers of guitar, bass and electric cello, electronic pulses, and vocals that range from explosive harshes to gossamer soft cleans to belting laments to gothic choral sections. Indeed, vocalist Mishkin Fitzgerald is the standout and her vocals lead the compositions: on “Illuminate” she modulates to a wholly different timbre for a verse², while a couple of tracks, most notably “Opulence”, play with layered choral sections. String embellishments and occasional cello solos contributed by Hana Piranha add an Apocalyptica-esque flavour, though notes of the heavier sound of groups like Destiny Potato and Jinjer are more dominant, as well as the softer almost folky flavours of Dreadnought and Suldusk which leak in. Crimson Veil resist easy comparison but the dichotomy of their sound might be best captured by Ok Goodnight. 

Atmospheric compositions with a rhythmic emphasis are the name of Crimson Veil’s game, with the titular opener seeing drummer Anna Mylee making the changes from 5/4 to 6/4 seamless, the track ending in a disconcerting climax with Fitzgerald growling away and Piranha’s ominous cello thrumming purposefully. There are plenty of other great moments: “Shift” features an especially thick riff where doubled up guitar, cello and bass all reinforce one another, and later in the song the strings seem to throw a little referential nod to John Murphy’s iconic “In the House – In a Heartbeat”³. Meanwhile, a brief guitar solo on “Flinch”, one of few on the record, makes a disproportionate impact for its novelty, and its more chaotic and longer sibling on twelve-minute closer “Task” is one of guitarist Garry Mitchell’s best moments. Crimson Veil also play with more ethereal qualities, such as the atmospheric build-up on “Awake” which recalls the eerie post-metal of Dreadnought. 

However, there’s one major fault to address on Hex: the production. It’s apparent at almost all times, even in the most stripped back drum hits, but it becomes a particular issue as the band pile on layers, with the crescendos and climaxes distorting and blending into sludge; a significant disadvantage for a band who like to play with overdistorted and glitchy effects—it’s hard to contrast such moments when your baseline production sound is like Death Magnetic⁴. One can hear the ghosts of other textures and nuances within the mix that are being completely washed out, and it’s genuinely aggrieving to endure. Piranha is done the dirtiest by the sonic blizzard, the subtler nuances of her cello work lost in the fray. For a band who describe themselves as—and legitimately are—cinematic, this is a glaring issue, and while such missteps can be forgiven on a debut, it’s something that desperately needs addressing. 

Related but slightly separate is the guitar tone: Mitchell’s riffs and solos consistently fall within the interesting to impressive range but he’s afflicted with a terribly lifeless guitar tone which verges on the midi distortion on Guitar Pro 5—on “Awake” there’s a break which Mitchell fills with a lick that sounds like it came out of a Nokia 3310. Where Piranha is buried by the mix, the effect on Mitchell is more akin to having him stand there in his boxers; a strange wall of fuzziness muddies the layers of guitar while making what you can hear sound somewhat naked. I don’t want it to sound like I’m picking on Mitchell because I don’t think he’s to blame; rather he’s been done a dreadful disservice by the production, just as Piranha has, not to mention Mylee’s drums—the cymbals are the canary in the coal mine of bad compression. Listening to Hex is a bit like hearing a bunch of talented musicians orbiting a central void—bits of guitar, bass, drums, and cello fly around the outside only to be swallowed by the production black hole. It’s genuinely disheartening, so let me be clear: Crimson Veil are four very talented performers who desperately need to go elsewhere for their mixing and mastering.

With cinematic scale, a great sense of compositional flow, and gothic saturation, Hex is an extremely impressive record boasting a well-defined core sound and a glut of highlights, all of which are unforgivably let down by a deeply frustrating production job that renders so much of it oddly inert. Every time I lose myself in the genuinely impressive compositions, my ear tunes back into that awful mix and I’m left wondering what might have been. With any luck, Crimson Veil will return with another great album soon, this time with the polish they so sorely deserve. 

Recommended tracks: Opulence, Shift, Hex
You may also like: Dreadnought, No Terror in the Bang
Final verdict: 6.5/10

1.  No. We’ve also had great releases from Azure, Kyros, and i Häxa (sort of, 3/4s of that one is out; don’t ask) this year. ↩︎
2.  I trawled to find out if this is a guest singer but could find no such person credited, it seems that Fitzgerald is just that good. ↩︎
3.  You know it from the 28 Days Later soundtrack or from all the noughties movie trailers that subsequently nicked it. ↩︎
4. Fuck you, Rick Rubin.
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Related links: Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube

Label: Reigning Phoenix Music – Facebook | Official Website

Crimson Veil is:
– Mishkin Fitzgerald (vocals)
– Garry Mitchell (guitars)
– Hana Piranha (strings)
– Anna Mylee (drums)