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Rating:
9.2 |
Darkmoon - Of Bitterness And Hate
26 September 2005
01. Of Bitterness And Hate
02. The Cell
03. Damned
04. The Fallen One
05. Dust In My Eyes
06. Drowning
07. The Beast
08. Bitter End
09. Lost Soul
10. On Her Grave
11. Evil Goddess Of The Night
Darkness, despair, pain, agony, suffering, misery, woe, wretchedness, or, as the title of this album suggests, bitterness and hate. That's exactly what this CD is about; it's a CD "Of Bitterness And Hate".
To be more exact; it's the debut of a Swiss quintet named Darkmoon, hailing from Switzerland, from a city quite near to me in fact. Darkmoon play Extreme Metal. Becoming more precise than that is hard, but I'll give it a go anyway. The bulk of the music is Melodic Death Metal, enhanced with elements of Black Metal, Death Metal, Thrash Metal, a tiny spoonful of Gothic Metal and some extra groove to round up the mix.
The main part of the music is done by the guitars. The two guitarists alternate between crunchy riffs that send shivers down your spine at times, grooves that are downright perfect for head banging and melodies that give you the feeling that they are "the calm before the storm" (or in Darkmoon's case, before the "Bitter End"!). The drums are mainly slow mid-tempo or mid-tempo but have quite some variation in them. They always fit exactly to the music, which is something a lot of bands have difficulties with… The vocals are some of the best I have heard in Extreme Metal. Mainly quite deep, they are often done really fast and with very few pauses on some songs. In a few parts vocalist Matthias Borer also holds single tones for very impressive amounts of time. A good example for these described vocal capabilities is the very jazzy closing song of the album, "Evil Goddess Of The Night".
Formed in 1997, Darkmoon took their time to get signed to a label and release an album, but the production and mixing of this album is superb. It's not perfect, but there isn't a thing about it that disturbs me. Having seen them live three times I can also assure that the songs are really great live, head banging guaranteed.
It doesn't matter if you're into more blackish songs like "The Cell", more gothy songs like "Drowning", more jazzy songs like "Evil Goddess Of The Night", thrashier tracks like "The Beast", or more Melodic Death Metal-like songs like "The Fallen One". "Of Bitterness And Hate" has all of these and much more. If you like different sides of Extreme Metal, and even more important, if you like you're Extreme Metal with a lot of variation, then this awesome debut is definitely for you.
If this is Darkmoon's debut, then watch out in the Extreme Metal scene, you might have a new rising star.
Top two songs: The Cell, Evil Goddess Of The Night
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Performance:
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8 |
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Songwriting:
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10 |
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Originality:
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10 |
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Production:
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8 |
written by Bas | 11.12.2006 |
Guest review disclaimer:
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
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Comments
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5
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Users visited:
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 Bas - 23.12.2006 at 18:44
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| really awesome extreme metal cd, those of you who like extreme metal, try it out |
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Hey thanks for adding this band, who knows when I would have found out about them. Great CD  |
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Bas - 24.12.2006 at 00:10
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Written by dismaleuphony on 24.12.2006 at 00:08
Hey thanks for adding this band, who knows when I would have found out about them. Great CD
you bought it? |
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Written by Bas on 24.12.2006 at 00:10
you bought it?
It should be in my hands within the next 2 weeks, just waiting for it to come in the mail It took a bit of searching to find it here in the US, but I did  |
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| Good album, though I would rate it about an 8. My favorite track is probably "Dust in My Eyes", love that chorus. |
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