Band:	Karkadan
Album:	Utmost Schizophrenia
Style:	Atmospheric black metal
Release date:	2004

01. Passing Away
02. On Your Knees
03. The Angel's Death
04. Faint
05. Frenetic Visions
06. The Journey
07. Sea Of Bitterness
+ The Ancient Times [video]

The second album of the German Karkadan was released in 2004, five years after their debut Eternal Black Reflections. Listening to Utmost Schizophrenia, you realize this long time between the two albums was fruitful and not due to laziness. Karkadan's music is mature and intelligent. The band obviously put a great deal of thought into this new output.

Karkadan's style is quite hard to categorize. They label themselves as heavy black metal, most zines say they're into black death metal, but none of those is fair enough since the band mix the aforementioned genres with atmospheric metal and doom overtones. The opener "Passing away" is quite different from the rest of the album. Its melancholic atmosphere and melodic riffs put it on the edge of old atmospheric black metal (see Tiamat and co). I expected the whole album to be like that, good but not so original.

But right after the album takes a whole new dimension. "On Your Knees" brings this thrashy rolling riff (see the main riff of "For Whom The Bell Tolls" and "In My Darkest Hour"? That's the idea) and Utmost Schizophrenia turns into a mid-paced groove fest, only sped up by the hysteric blastbeats of "Faint". The only flaw I can see is that there is a bit too much of this rolling riff that comes back in every song. Fortunately the atmospheres and the structures are varied enough to keep your interest alive. The last two songs have a kind of ritual, eerie feel to them, another side to this very surprising and promising band. The only thing that doesn't change is the aggressive vocals of Robby Beyer (also manager of Supreme Chaos Records).

I can't stress enough the power of the atmospheres in this album. Don't search for technical wankery, amazing riffs, or even hellish black metal. This album works as a whole, as a unique and finally rather original piece of dark, melodic, catchy, groovy metal. All in all, this is the kind of band that could find its audience among the two sides: melodic and extreme fans.

Highlights: Passing Away, Faint, The Journey