REVIEW

The first EP from Japanese post-black and screamo band Cissné.

Formed in Tokyo in October 2025, the trio consists of hikage (vocals), hiiro (guitar), and Ai (bass). Moving freely between post-black, screamo, ambient, and post-classical music, Cissné seeks to fuse delicate melodies with an aggressive sonic palette.

hikage, who also performs with the solo project swancry, serves as Cissné's emotional core, shifting effortlessly between fragile clean vocals and impassioned screams. There is something of both a siren, whose beautiful voice lures its victims toward destruction, and a mandrake, whose fatal scream brings death to those who hear it. Their range extends further still, from the whispered tones of the poetry readings to vocal performances that convey intense anger and grief.

Guitarist hiiro previously played in the lyrical hardcore band Fall of Tears. The dramatic structures developed there, incorporating post-rock, ambient music, and poetry reading while moving from quiet passages toward explosive climaxes, carry over naturally into Cissné. hiiro also contributed songwriting to swancry's album To a Number of Prayers. On “Innocent,” in particular, one can already hear the blueprint for Cissné's current sound, with flowing piano lines seamlessly intertwined with blast beats. The formation of Cissné following this collaboration feels like a natural progression, the result of two musicians whose musical sensibilities had already begun to resonate with one another.

The origin of the name Cissné remains unclear. However, considering that hikage's solo project swancry hinted at rebirth on “Birth,” the closing track of To a Number of Prayers, it is tempting to hear a quiet continuation of swancry's “swan” imagery in the new project. The fact that Cissné's merchandise includes a keychain and T-shirt featuring swan-inspired designs further supports this interpretation.

Across five tracks, the EP moves between silence and overwhelming noise, using the intensity of post-black and screamo as its foundation while incorporating piano, clean vocals, and poetry reading. Rather than simply placing beauty and aggression on opposite sides of a seesaw, Cissné uses these contrasts to amplify the emotional fluctuations of the characters portrayed in the lyrics and transform them into sound.

#1 “home” opens with a fragile clean tone. Before long, heated screams and distorted guitars erupt, with drums and bass driving the track forward with considerable force. The song repeatedly shifts between silence and explosion, weaving in poetry before clean vocals and screams collide toward the climax. It is a striking opener that showcases Cissné's fusion of ethereal beauty and unrestrained aggression without mercy.

The lyrics evoke the anguish of a child who has lost any sense of where they belong. That emotional instability is mirrored in the song's constant movement between quiet and overwhelming noise.

#2 “straysheep” brings Cissné's post-classical side to the forefront. Beautiful piano refrains, poetry, and clean vocals suddenly give way to grinding walls of distorted riffs and vicious screams. The transition near the end, from a lullaby-like passage into an eruption of impassioned screaming, is particularly devastating. The sheer intensity is enough to make you feel like you're about to start bleeding from every available opening. Alongside the lyrics, the song releases an overwhelming desire to break free from a world that has kept its characters confined.

#3 “water lily” is strongly rooted in post-black and blackgaze, with clean vocals at its center. The balance between pastoral melodies, delicate singing, and ferocious screams reaches a level comparable to Sylvaine, making it one of the EP's most memorable tracks. Its portrayal of obsessive love through the image of a white water lily adds another layer of beauty and fixation to the song.

The song can be heard as a powerful response from Japan to the international folk-meets-blackgaze lineage represented by Alcest and Sylvaine. One question, however, is how the sections where screams and clean vocals unfold simultaneously will be reproduced live. Having a member handle the high-register harmonies, somewhat like ZERO in Alcest, could make this beautiful contrast even more striking onstage.

#4 “will” begins with a monologue presented in diary form. The eventual fate of Boy A and Girl A is hinted at from their respective perspectives, while the full picture remains deliberately concealed. Jun Maeda and yanaginagi's “Koru Yume” also unfolds like a mystery through a diary format, but “will” takes a distinctive approach by allowing the two perspectives to intersect only in fragments, leaving listeners to imagine the truth for themselves.

The music follows a similarly restrained path at first, progressing quietly as though someone were calmly reading through a diary. But when the emotions that have been suppressed finally break loose, merciless walls of noise and scream-like cries explode into a torrent of feeling. The sheer force of the eruption is genuinely breathtaking.

Closing the EP, #5 “doors” begins as a delicate ballad built around beautiful piano. Combined with lyrics about “me” and “you” encountering each other inside a closed-off world, the song carries a sentimental quality reminiscent of an insert song from a late-'90s or early-2000s sekai-kei adventure game.

But this is where Cissné truly reveals its strength. As majestic guitars reminiscent of Sigur Rós emerge, the poetry grows increasingly impassioned, spilling over with intense emotion. Images of a narrow box and doors that cannot be chosen evoke a fate from which there is seemingly no escape. The sense of helplessness gradually transforms into an act of resistance, before the song returns to a gentler voice, leaving a quiet sense of relief—as though the story has finally reached its conclusion while retaining the faintest trace of hope.

A child who has lost their place in “home.” Someone trying to climb beyond the fence in “straysheep.” Someone drowning in obsessive love in “water lily.” Two people destined to part in “will.” And finally, someone discovering a glimmer of hope within a closed world in “doors.” 『Awake children under the moon』 can almost be read as a five-part anthology of stories, each capturing the fragile inner lives of children who have yet to fully become adults.

Of course, no explicit narrative has been officially presented, and this interpretation is ultimately my own imagination drawn from the lyrics. Yet across all five tracks, there is a recurring sense of loss, loneliness, and irrational suffering, coupled with an unmistakable will to keep moving forward. The EP possesses a rare ability to summon these kinds of stories within the listener.

I attended Cissné's first one-man show at Kichijoji WARP on February 14, 2026, shortly before the EP's release. The show sold out and drew an impressive crowd, once again revealing the intensity of the band's growing audience. Post-black metal act Pale and ambient/post-classical artist Smany joined the bill, creating an event defined by a striking contrast between stillness and movement. At first glance, it may have seemed like an unexpected combination, but it was an exceptionally fitting lineup for revealing Cissné's musical roots and aesthetic.

Built on the foundation of extreme music such as screamo and post-black, yet wrapped in the otherworldly beauty of ambient, folk, and post-classical music, Cissné has a distinctive ability to appeal to listeners far beyond any single scene. The band's sound encompasses elements associated with artists ranging from envy, heaven in her arms, mutyumu, and Ling tosite sigure to MyGO!!!!!, Alcest, Sylvaine, Sigur Rós, Ólafur Arnalds, Hammock, ZABADAK, Akino Arai, Keiichi Okabe, and Evan Call. If even one of those names resonates with you, Cissné is well worth discovering. You may find an entirely new path opening up.

Following the EP's release on April 10, Cissné performed in Bangkok, Thailand, on July 4. On August 7, the band released a split with Costa Rican shoegaze band Adiós Cometa, contributing a new song, “Zero.” A Latin American tour has also been confirmed for 2027, with shows currently announced for Santiago, Chile, on May 8 and São Paulo, Brazil, on May 9.

Despite having formed only recently, Cissné's reach is already beginning to extend beyond Japan. It may not be long before the band shares a stage with international post-black and blackgaze acts such as Myrkur and Sylvaine.

The crying swan has spread new wings and is now taking flight into the world.