Band:	Darkmoon
Album:	Of Bitterness And Hate
Style:	Black metal, Melodic death metal, Thrash metal
Release date:	September 26, 2005
Guest review by:	Bas

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