Originally a one-man project by Slovenian musician Matic Blagonič, Hei’An has now evolved into a veritable collective of keen artists striving to bring Slovenian metal into our heads and hearts – successfully so! The band, who likes to think of their output as Post-Progressive-Metal, impressively manages to balance out both heavy sounds and tender emotions blossoming across a field of arcane post-metal-esque landscapes. Through the inspiration of names such as Alcest, Leprous or Together To The Stars, especially listeners of dreamy and deep metal songs will highly appreciate the upcoming studio album “imago”.
The first single inferno summarizes the band’s energy and approaches the topic just perfectly. As lead singer Matic Blagonič says: “It has both really soft ambiental parts, heavy blast-beats, post-metal-esque parts, progressive metal-esque parts, metalcore-esque parts, a hint of everything that follows in a way. Sonically, it sounds really desperate, but with hints of hope, and lyrically it’s just like that as well. We are very pleased to have Aljaž Novak from Malorshiga as a guest vocalist on the track, he provides to the atmospheric energy of the song and enhances the personal note of the track”.
You can watch the animated music video for “inferno” right below.
The concept album, which is set to be released on November 25th, 2022, epicts a journey through a man’s inner hell and the challenge of overcoming inner demons and trauma. Touching on vile, yet sadly all too common topics such as toxic relationships, depression, loss or addiction, imago directs the listener through multiple circles of torment and tribulations – on the road to reemerging with a positive, reflected pattern.
The title “imago” – which is the name of the final track as well – comes from the last phase of development of growth for insects. While caterpillars are going through their imago stage, they become butterflies, free creatures with unique colors and a past. Summing up the album’s essence, Blagonič says: “It’s a metaphor for going through a bunch of hardships, yet in the end, spreading your wings as a beautiful butterfly, and moving forward better, stronger, more connected with yourself and more beautiful, especially on the inside. That’s why there is a butterfly on our album cover. But as you will notice, the butterfly still has slightly burnt and damaged wings – that is because when going through hardships, you can never just ‘forget’ or ‘erase’ what you’ve gone through, trauma will always stay with you, forever. But if you accept it, understand it (and yourself) and learn from it, you can still blossom into a beautiful butterfly, full of love and full of life”.
The musical journey of Hei’An may have just begun – but with their highly lyrical, artistic approach toward heavy music, they are set to have a bright future in post-modern metal.
“imago” by Hei’An will be released on November 25th, 2022, via SAOL and it is available for pre-order here.
Tracklist:
01. semita tenebrarum
02. inferno [feat. Oəlka (Malorshiga)]
03 embers
04 can’t get out of my skin
05 escape
06 dreamer [feat. Joe Buras (Born of Osiris)]
07 in the cold
08 time to go (feat. Matic Štemberger)
09 shut my eyes
10 at the break of dawn
11 noises
12 imago
13 ko te ni
14 preteklost [feat. Gregor Strasbergar – Štras (Mrfy)]
15 ne iščem več besed
Weblinks:
heianofficial.com
www.facebook.com/heianmusicofficial
