History Music / Sigh

* WidgetSeries: Oh ''gods'' yes. They're one of the very weirdest bands from Japan, which, considering it has produced bands like Music/DirEnGrey and Koenji Hyakkei, is saying ''a lot''.

Sigh is an [[AvantGardeMetal Avant-Garde]] BlackMetal band from Japan, maybe the first BlackMetal band ever from that country, which formed in Tokyo in 1990 and has the distinction of being one of the outright ''weirdest'' bands from an already weird genre. They were somewhat well-known among the black metal scene in the early 1990s for being signed to Deathlike Silence Productions, the record label of Music/{{Mayhem}} guitarist Euronymous. Beginning as a fairly straightforward BlackMetal band, they increasingly began to experiment with their sound a bit, invoking MindScrew in the liner notes to ''Hail Horror Hail''. This culminated in 2001's ''Imaginary Sonicscape'', which goes to levels of GenreRoulette that quite possibly have to be heard to be believed. After committing GenreAdultery with the PowerMetal and [[NewWaveOfBritishHeavyMetal NWOBHM]]-influenced ''Gallows Gallery'' (their biggest departure from BlackMetal and their only release not to feature any HarshVocals), they settled on a hybrid of BlackMetal, ThrashMetal, and SymphonicMetal for ''Hangman's Hymn'' and ''Scenes from Hell''. ''In Somniphobia'', ''Graveward'', and ''Heir to Despair'' go back to the GenreRoulette of previous works. As of 2014, they describe their style as "Cinematic Horror Metal".

* NewSoundAlbum: Arguably, most entries in their discography count as this. ''Gallows Gallery'' is probably the biggest standout, with the songs being substantially shorter than those on their other albums and featuring substantial PowerMetal and [[NewWaveOfBritishHeavyMetal NWOBHM]] influence and no HarshVocals, although it could also be considered GenreAdultery since they never did anything else like it.

* Kam Lee (Massacre) - guest vocals on "L'Art de mourir" (''Scenes from Hell'')

* Niklas Kvarforth (Shining) - vocals on "A Messenger for Tomorrow" (''Graveward'')

* FiveManBand:
** TheLeader: Mirai
** TheLancer: Dr. Mikannibal
** TheSmartGuy: Satoshi
** TheBigGuy: Junichi
** [[SixthRanger Fifth Ranger]]: Nozomu

* Kam Lee (ex-Music/{{Death}}, Bone Gnawer, The Grotesquery) - guest vocals on "L'Art de mourir" (''Scenes from Hell'')

** Finally, ''Hail Horror Hail'' has Japanese lyrics in several songs ("12 Souls", "Invitation to Die", "Curse of Izanagi"), and ''Heir to Despair'' is ''mostly'' in Japanese, with two songs ("In Memories Delusional" and "Sub specie aeternitatis") being entirely in Japanese, two others ("Homo homini lupus" and "Hunters Not Horned") being entirely in Japanese except for their choruses, and only one ("Acosmism") not containing any Japanese at all.

* You Oshima - guitars (2014-present)

** [[SixthRanger Fifth Ranger]]: You

Sigh is an [[AvantGardeMetal Avant-Garde]] BlackMetal band from Japan, maybe the first BlackMetal band ever from that country, which formed in Tokyo in 1990 and has the distinction of being one of the outright ''weirdest'' bands from an already weird genre. They were somewhat well-known among the black metal scene in the early 1990s for being signed to Deathlike Silence Productions, the record label of Music/{{Mayhem}} guitarist Euronymous. Beginning as a fairly straightforward BlackMetal band, they increasingly began to [[NeoclassicalPunkZydecoRockabilly experiment with their sound a bit]], invoking MindScrew in the liner notes to ''Hail Horror Hail''. This culminated in 2001's ''Imaginary Sonicscape'', which goes to levels of GenreRoulette that quite possibly have to be heard to be believed. After committing GenreAdultery with the PowerMetal and [[NewWaveOfBritishHeavyMetal NWOBHM]]-influenced ''Gallows Gallery'' (their biggest departure from BlackMetal and their only release not to feature any HarshVocals), they settled on a hybrid of BlackMetal, ThrashMetal, and SymphonicMetal for ''Hangman's Hymn'' and ''Scenes from Hell''. ''In Somniphobia'', ''Graveward'', and ''Heir to Despair'' go back to the GenreRoulette of previous works. As of 2014, they describe their style as "Cinematic Horror Metal".

* NeoclassicalPunkZydecoRockabilly: Frequent on their albums, but nowhere near so much as on ''Imaginary Sonicscape'', which could also pretty much be described as musical GenreRoulette, what with oddities like disco and dub reggae breaks being thrown into the middle of almost every song. Not to mention the obligatory classical snippet (an excerpt of Music/FryderykChopin's Minute Waltz) overlaid with what appears to be several hundred samples of giggling babies (apparently Mirai's son) that closes the album. ''In Somniphobia'' probably doesn't carry this trope out quite as much as ''Imaginary Sonicscape'', but it's probably close.

* GratuitousFrench: The song titles "L'Art de mourir" ("The Art of Dying"), "L'Excommunication à minuit" ("Excommunication at Midnight").

* TheCoverChangesTheGender: Their cover of [[TeacherStudentRomance "Teacher's Pet" by Venom]] is sung by [[BiTheWay Dr. Mikannibal]].

* GratuitousLatin: Latin is heavily used in ''Hangman's Hymn'', which makes sense as the album is structured as a funeral mass of sorts. Also shows up elsewhere, such as the song titles "Musica in tempora belli" ("Music in Times of War", although it is slightly grammatically incorrect; when ''in'' is used to refer to time, it should be followed by the dative case, which would be "Musica in temporibus belli") and, apparently, "Kaedit nos pestis" (which appears to be roughly translated as "Strikes Us with Pestilence" or "Plague Strikes Us", though it apparently is correctly spelled as "'''C'''aedit"). There's also "Vanitas", which, unsurprisingly, means "vanity". ''Heir to Despair'' gives us "Homo homini lupus" (an abridgement of "Homo homini lupus est", meaning "Man Is a Wolf to Man"), "Oblivium" ("Forgetfulness" or "Oblivion"), and "Sub specie aeternitatis" ("Under the Form of Eternity").

* GratuitousLatin: Latin is heavily used in ''Hangman's Hymn'', which makes sense as the album is structured as a funeral mass of sorts. Also shows up elsewhere, such as the song titles "Musica in tempora belli" ("Music in a Time of War", although apparently it is slightly grammatically incorrect; it's evidently supposed to be "Musica in tempor'''e''' belli") and, apparently, "Kaedit nos pestis" (which appears to be roughly translated as "Strikes Us with Pestilence" or "Plague Strikes Us", though it apparently is correctly spelled as "'''C'''aedit"). There's also "Vanitas", which, unsurprisingly, means "vanity". ''Heir to Despair'' gives us "Homo homini lupus" (an abridgement of "Homo homini lupus est", meaning "Man Is a Wolf to Man"), "Oblivium" ("Forgetfulness" or "Oblivion"), and "Sub specie aeternitatis" ("Under the Form of Eternity").

* UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper: "In The Mind Of A Lunatic" is about him.

* SelfDeprecation: In his announcement that the band had finished tracking for ''Heir to Despair'', Mirai remarked, "No one is going to like it." (This prediction did not end up coming true; he later clarified that he'd felt that way because he felt the album was incredibly personal and a big enough departure from the band's traditional sound that he was certain it would alienate listeners.)

** TheLancer: You

** TheChick: Dr. Mikannibal

* MsFanservice: Dr.Mikannibal

* AltumVidetur: Heavily used in ''Hangman's Hymn'', which makes sense as the album is structured as a funeral mass of sorts. Also shows up elsewhere, such as the song titles "Musica in tempora belli" ("Music in a Time of War", although apparently it is slightly grammatically incorrect; it's evidently supposed to be "Musica in tempor'''e''' belli") and, apparently, "Kaedit nos pestis" (which appears to be roughly translated as "Strikes Us with Pestilence" or "Plague Strikes Us", though it apparently is correctly spelled as "'''C'''aedit"). There's also "Vanitas", which, unsurprisingly, means "vanity". ''Heir to Despair'' gives us "Homo homini lupus" (an abridgement of "Homo homini lupus est", meaning "Man Is a Wolf to Man"), "Oblivium" ("Forgetfulness" or "Oblivion"), and "Sub specie aeternitatis" ("Under the Form of Eternity").

* LongestSongGoesLast: "Heir to Despair", unless you count "Heresy" as a single track (the first movement plays like a separate song, however).

* AltumVidetur: Heavily used in ''Hangman's Hymn'', which makes sense as the album is structured as a funeral mass of sorts. Also shows up elsewhere, such as the song titles "Musica in tempora belli" ("Music in a Time of War", although apparently it is slightly grammatically incorrect; it's evidently supposed to be "Musica in tempor'''e''' belli") and, apparently, "Kaedit nos pestis" (which appears to be roughly translated as "Strikes Us with Pestilence" or "Plague Strikes Us", though it apparently is correctly spelled as "'''C'''aedit"). Finally, there's "Vanitas", which, unsurprisingly, means "vanity".

** Finally, ''Hail Horror Hail'' has Japanese lyrics in several songs ("12 Souls", "Invitation to Die", "Curse of Izanagi"). Reportedly ''Heir to Despair'' also uses a large number of Japanese-language lyrics.

* CulturedBadass: Given that Sigh has quoted Chopin and Mozart, incorporated references to works like ''Literature/ParadiseLost'' and ''Literature/OedipusRex'' into their works, and named Music/TheBeatles as one of the major influences on their increasing experimentation starting at around ''Ghastly Funeral Theatre'', the whole band arguably qualifies, though Mirai, being responsible for the bulk of the songwriting, probably qualifies most of all.

** Finally, ''Hail Horror Hail'' has Japanese lyrics in several songs ("12 Souls", "Invitation to Die", "Curse of Izanagi").

* EpicRocking: Most releases have at least one or two really long songs. ''Infidel Art'' has five of them - only one song on that album ("Suicidogenic", at a mere 4:46) is less than eight minutes long. Their longest song, "Slaughtergarden Suite", is nearly eleven minutes long - unless you count "Lucid Nightmares" as one song; it runs for 41:46, but it really plays more like a suite of several songs that are stitched together with connecting interludes. (The longest song in "Lucid Nightmares" is "Amongst the Phantoms of Abandoned Tumbrils", which runs for 9:31; however, the song proper is closer to 7:14, with approximately the last 2:17 being comprised of a trippy interlude.) Also above the nine-minute mark are "Ready for the Final War" (9:16), "The Zombie Terror" (9:43), "The Last Elegy" (10:30), "Beyond Centuries" (9:39), "Seed of Eternity" (9:19), and "Heir to Despair" (10:16).

Sigh is an [[AvantGardeMetal Avant-Garde]] BlackMetal band from Japan, maybe the first BlackMetal band ever from that country, which formed in Tokyo in 1990 and has the distinction of being one of the outright ''weirdest'' bands from an already weird genre. They were somewhat well-known among the black metal scene in the early 1990s for being signed to Deathlike Silence Productions, the record label of Music/{{Mayhem}} guitarist Euronymous. Beginning as a fairly straightforward BlackMetal band, they increasingly began to [[NeoclassicalPunkZydecoRockabilly experiment with their sound a bit]], invoking MindScrew in the liner notes to ''Hail Horror Hail''. This culminated in 2001's ''Imaginary Sonicscape'', which goes to levels of GenreRoulette that quite possibly have to be heard to be believed. After committing GenreAdultery with the PowerMetal and [[NewWaveOfBritishHeavyMetal NWOBHM]]-influenced ''Gallows Gallery'' (their biggest departure from BlackMetal and their only release not to feature any HarshVocals), they settled on a hybrid of BlackMetal, ThrashMetal, and SymphonicMetal for ''Hangman's Hymn'' and ''Scenes from Hell''. ''In Somniphobia'' and ''Graveward'' go back to the GenreRoulette of previous works. As of 2014, they describe their style as "Cinematic Horror Metal".

* ''Heir to Despair'' (TBA)

* EpicRocking: Most releases have at least one or two really long songs. ''Infidel Art'' has five of them - only one song on that album ("Suicidogenic", at a mere 4:46) is less than eight minutes long. Their longest song, "Slaughtergarden Suite", is nearly eleven minutes long - unless you count "Lucid Nightmares" as one song; it runs for 41:46, but it really plays more like a suite of several songs that are stitched together with connecting interludes. (The longest song in "Lucid Nightmares" is "Amongst the Phantoms of Abandoned Tumbrils", which runs for 9:31; however, the song proper is closer to 7:14, with approximately the last 2:17 being comprised of a trippy interlude.) Also above the nine-minute mark are "Ready for the Final War" (9:16), "The Zombie Terror" (9:43), "The Last Elegy" (10:30), "Beyond Centuries" (9:39), and "Seed of Eternity" (9:19).

* Mirai Kawashima - vocals, keyboard, samples, formerly bass
* You Oshima - guitar
* Satoshi Fujinami - bass, formerly drums & guitar
* Junichi Harashima - drums
* Mika "Dr. Mikannibal" Kawashima - alto sax, vocals

* DepravedBisexual: Mikannibal, who is bisexual, seems to cultivate this image on purpose. She has revealed in interviews that she has eaten cockroaches, drinks cow's blood before recording vocals, records vocals naked, and enjoys [[GroinAttack urethra torture]] (inflicting it, that is).

* EarlyBirdCameo: Mikannibal was a model in the packaging of ''Hangman's Hymn'' (that's her in the top frame of the collage) before she became an official band member.

** ''Scorn Defeat'': The original Deathlike Silence Productions does not suffer from this trope, being a solid [=DR12=]. It was later remastered by Enucleation Records with five bonus tracks, and came to a rather {{egregious}} [=DR5=], though the mastering engineer took care not to clip it. And then Hammerheart Records remastered it again two years later. This time it came out to [=DR9=], but with a caveat: the original album was clipped. The bonus tracks, however, were free of clipping and came out to similar dynamic range as the album itself. There is also, of course, the 3LP Dark Symphonies version, which will probably be many listeners' preferred version if they can track it down.