Prophecy Records may have started the year off with plenty of drama and bombast with a couple of great releases from Dornenreich and Lifelover (RIP) but the three they have presented us with at the close of 2011 are quite different affairs. Whilst colleagues tackle Tenhi and Nucleus Torn it is left to me to fall into the progressive territories of Germany’s Dark Suns. This is my first encounter with this group although it appears to be their fourth album, spread out like its predecessors in a three year gap from their previous release. Apparently this is an album that is focusing on a more rock orientation and in line with that they have lightened their mood to an orange status by both album title and cover, away from previous darker tones.
The album, recorded live in the studio starts at full on organic Hammond organ flow as ‘Toy’ twists and turns in like it has fallen straight out of the 70’s. Having seen Cressida the other night and Caravan recently it’s somewhat difficult not to think of them as the almost spoken clean vocals of Niko Knappe come in and this is certainly now at the easier listening end of the spectrum. Thankfully the instrumentation goes into a more haywire tumult and some humongous background yells come from the singer. By now I would be stroking a beard if I had one and am nodding along nicely.
As things progress it’s obvious that the band have a lot of ideas and keep things on the whole to reasonable levels without songs going into huge eccentric running times (until the end of the album). Everything from Deep Purple through to more recent stoner rock can be heard on the likes of ‘Eight Quiet Minutes’ but it’s thankfully all quite accessible rather than overblown and pompous. ‘Diamond’ goes into a bit of a weird zone but it’s the shortest song on the album so it only stews my head with its tempo changing rhythmic thrusts for a while. The gentle instrumental ‘Not Enough Fingers’ follows and has you kind of nodding off at complete contrast to the manic fervour of the last number. ‘That Is Why They All Hate You In Hell’ is an odd one and attacks like a temper tantrum with high screamed Shirley Temple vocals waking up anyone who has dozed off.
At times I am reminded why there are others who have much more capacity for liking this type of music and I admit that some of it like the “welcome home, come in sit down and eat” vocals are a bit too Gong and hippy for me. When we get towards the end of the album I have probably had more than enough of this style and still have a 14 minute song to go. The clean harmonious vocal croons remind a little of recent Ulver here and musically this does have the sort of pretension of the group about it too.
So it’s a mixed review for me, I neither hated or really gelled with this album and probably found it a bit too out my comfort zone. That aside it was really interesting and kept me intrigued and if you are really into the progressive side of things this should certainly be worth checking out.
http://www.darksuns.de
Pete Woods
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