Album Review: Hangman's Chair - Saddiction
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
Three years on from their A Loner record, when Parisian quartet, Hangman’s Chair, ditched the stoner-doom sound which had dominated their previous five albums, in favour of a darker ambience, they return with full-length number seven: Saddication.
If you caught the band’s set at Damnation last year you’ll be aware that there is a psychedelic darkness to the sound nowadays, though the Katatonia-style melancholy, which dominated A Loner, is really only heard in the ethereal notes and whispering vocals of In Disguise, with its drawn out restraint.
Similarly, 44 YOD’s languid post rock sound is slow and deliberate, guitars are simple and refined, reminiscent of waves lapping against a beach; there’s the occasional swell, but an overall sense of calmness pervades.
With a couple of decades under the belts, Hangman’s Chair’s playing is airtight. Drummer Mehdi Birouk Thépegnier and rhythm partner, bassist Clément Hanvic, hold it together with a-near instinctive connection. Kowloon Lights is perhaps the most doom-centric of Saddication’s nine tracks, and that doom is built on the sturdy foundation created in the engine room.
Lead single, 2am Thoughts grows from a post metal opening, increasing in volume if not tempo with every cycle; fat chugs and weighty percussion allow the dominant riff to play on a seemingly eternal repeat, until it becomes as intrusive as the titular nocturnal musings.
The general vibe of the early tracks on Saddiction is, oddly enough, a sort of classic rock one. To Know the Night begins the record with big hits from the outset, yet guitarist/ vocalist Cédric Toufouti’s narration combines traditional verbiage with whispers, leading to an aesthetic from the Eighties that would go on to make all those Simpson/ Brookheimer soundtracks big sellers.
The Worst is Yet to Come and Kowloon Lights tick those boxes early in Saddication’s run-time, though by the time Canvas comes around, with its blending of darkness and a significant post metal vibe, Hangman’s Chair are charting quite different waters for the album’s climax.
Neglect and Healed represent two of the record’s final three tracks, bookending 44 YOD’s fragility with Saddiction’s heaviest pieces. The interplay of guitars on Neglect shows how weighty an acoustic guitar can be, as Cédric and fellow six-stringer, Julien Rour Chanut compete for dominance; possibly about as heavy as the record gets, it’s a track that’s huge in its scope, without sacrificing the emotion of the piece.
Healed is Saddiction’s closer and its longest composition, combining massive slamming drums and dirty riffing with a lightness akin to later-era Ulver and an emotion heart only the French could conjure.
I know it’s too early in 2025 to be even thinking about highlights, but I’d be surprised not to be coming back and considering Saddication as we’re putting the tree up.
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