I think it was the previous record from UNREQVITED that I called ‘The least black metal, black metal record I’ve ever heard’ on the social platform formerly known as Twitter. The sole mastermind behind UNREQVITED, Ghost (though they go by the symbol 鬼 when written down, because of course they do) responded to my missive by saying simply ‘Thanks’ if memory serves. And I don’t believe they were being sarcastic, either. Because 2021’s Beautiful Ghosts was very clearly not trying to be black metal in any traditional sense, though it was unquestionably an ingredient of what was created. The fact remains though, that what the album had in spades was beauty. Which is anathema to the black metal purist, of course. So curiosity got the better of me when this new record dropped into my inbox.

Pathway to the Moon is something of a different beast again. This is apparently (at least partially) to do with the fact that Ghost now views the UNREQVITED entity as a live, touring band and less of a studio project. This has led to more vocals, more hooks, and arguably less in the way of songs completely uninterested in conventional structure. That’s not to say that this is a record made up of 3m 30s verse, chorus, verse, chorus songs, because it’s light years from that. It does now seem to have a very conscious grasp of the listener, though. And that’s maybe good and bad. It feels very slightly more constrained in its explorative passages. It’s less weird. More willing to curtail those meanderings. But it does also have the intended emotional impact in less obtuse packages. One aspect of that palatability though, is the clean vocals. Which I’m basically ok with, but there are points in the record, such as in recent single “The Starforger” where I feel like I might have strayed into an overwrought, pop bedroom project. And I’m less cool with that. Because you can stray from your source material as much as you like, and in fact producing something which defies any a sense of convention that exists in that oeuvre is cool as f*ck. But wherever you end up, it still needs to have at least some sense of edge if you’re ultimately interacting with an audience borne to some degree from extreme metal.

Luckily, I think that the record, apart from a few isolated moments, avoids those pitfalls. For a start, there is a 3-song suite which clocks in at almost half an hour, so there is clearly no attempt here to jump ship for the mainstream. And at the other end of the spectrum, one of the tracks (“Celestial Sleep”) is a 2-minute instrumental which features an ambient backdrop with languid but crepuscular guitar drizzled over it. That interlude precedes album closer “Departure - Everlasting Dream”” which is every bit as shimmering and beautiful as the name implies. It has bar chimes, piano, swelling orchestration and the most reverb-heavy tremolo picking I’ve heard in a very long time. There are choral vocals bedded deep in the mix, and some satisfying, if somewhat schmaltzy chord resolutions. In short, it stays just on the right side of end-of-a-Disney-film core

Yes, I know I’ve been criticising this record for much the same thing as I’ve been praising it. I’m not blind to that fact. But there are differences in delivery here that might be subtle, but they make a difference. The fact that the darkest song on the record is also the longest song, and the one with the most that is communicable to the typical black metal fan might be a coincidence, or it might be an olive branch of sorts. Either way, it does evidence that UNREQVITED, for all their experimentation, do still have a foot planted in that world and do not yet wish to leave it entirely. The song is great, incidentally, and I would argue the record might have benefited from more of these songs that blend the styles involved as opposed to them remaining largely disparate, but horses for course, I suppose.

It’s an interesting record, that’s for damn sure. And I really like a lot of it. But in an age where the extreme end of the spectrum is one of the last strongholds of an album being hewn into being as a cohesive entity, with sequencing, narrative, thematic and sonic identity, etc all key features, it does feel kind of a shame for someone of this extreme level of talent to have created something with great quality, but which feels entirely undecided as to what it wants to be. I’ll still pick songs out of this to listen to from time to time though, because when it gets it right, it gets it REALLY right.