UNREQVITED – Beautiful Ghosts (2021, Canada)

Our next spotlight is on number 187 on The List, submitted by HauntedOwlbear.

While this one-person project from Billy Melsness aka 鬼 started out as atmospheric/depressive black metal, by the time we get to this, the 6th UNREQVITED album, we’re pretty much firmly in post-rock territory, albeit blackgaze-flavoured. Hints of the project’s black metal beginnings are essentially only heard in Melsness’ wordless, incorporeal screams interspersed throughout the otherwise instrumental – and, dare I say, uplifting (or, vplifting?) – album. The metal (or, at least, post-metal) sounds return in full force in the following album, A Pathway to the Moon (2025), but this is a really beautiful stop in the UNREQVITED discography. And, seeing as the Chinese character Melsness has chosen as his stage name can mean “ghost”, it was perhaps inevitable that we would get an album with that word in the title.

• Bandcamp: UNREQVITED – Beautiful Ghosts
• Discogs: UNREQVITED – Beautiful Ghosts

#blackgaze #Canada #instrumental #metal #postmetal #postrock #Unreqvited