Metal Storm logo
Evig Natt - Darkland review




Bandcamp music player
Reviewer:
7.5

15 users:
7.47
Band: Evig Natt
Album: Darkland
Release date: April 2010


01. Darkland
02. Evig Natt
03. Until The End
04. I Die Again
05. Sjelelaus
06. The Wanderer
07. Withered Garden
08. My Sin
09. Epitaph

By the looks of it Evig Natt are a Norwegian gothic metal band and Darkland is their second full-length. They like combining the heaviest parts of gothic metal with the most melodic parts and the result is that at times they actually sound close to melodic black metal and close to symphonic power at others.

Accordingly the vocals vary between female singing and some nice, heavy male grunts. Darkland is keyboard-laden and very much about atmosphere. Dense, distorted guitar-work and mostly double-bass drumming (Harald "Revheim" Helgeson, ex- Enslaved) make up the rest of the instrumental base.

I like this album as a whole. While it misses any really outstanding or memorable parts, it's interesting and enjoyable. Variation is certainly there and the atmosphere is great on some songs. However exactly that's the rub. The big setback this album has, is inconsistency.

Let's take the female vocals. They're excellent on "My Sin", but dull and uninspired on "I Die Again". Some songs have me waiting for the extreme metal outburst to pass, so the melodic side of the band can shine again. But there are as much tranquil parts that have me wishing for some more blackened gothic goodness. Of course the song quality greatly varies as well.

It's obvious that Evig Natt still have some songwriting issues to work on, but still Darkland is an enjoyable album. If you like both black and power metal and are wondering what their gothic metal bastard kid would sound like; give this one a shot.

Favourite song: Darkland


Rating breakdown
Performance: 7
Songwriting: 7
Originality: 8
Production: 8

Written by Bas | 04.05.2010




Comments

Comments: 1   Visited by: 36 users
07.05.2010 - 15:59
Rating: 8
ravendeath

Very good, but they should improve a little on vocal parts... both male and female!
Loading...

Hits total: 5012 | This month: 18