This album was recorded some time during 2007 and finally saw a release towards the end of 2008. My first impressions of the album cover were somewhat suspicious as the logo has a slight gothic touch and the song titles have that fancy drop cap style of said genre. Indeed the intro begins exactly as I expected with some piano and synths creating a very solemn and sad sound similar to Theatre Of Tragedy.
Thank fuck I was wrong! ‘Lonely I March’ bursts in with melodic death metal conviction and a mixture of gruff and mid range screamed vocals. However there is a tint of Goth in the melody in a vein similar to Crematory or even early Samael. The mid riff is catchy as the band attempts genre defying leaps as much as possible in all their songs. It certainly adds to the variation but the song structures and flow suffer as a consequence. ‘Dance Of Fire’ has a short-lived blast and a gurgled vocal that is offset by some harsher vocals with a blackened edge. Ideas are aplenty as they capture the essence of melody and add tons of bounce to their songs with the odd heavy metal riff chucked in for good measure.
Some powerful guitar lines are used on ‘Black Rainbow’ after the piano introduction to it. Though the band uses plenty of vocal styles I wondered at times if a semi-clean approach could have been added to compliment the harmonies. I enjoyed ‘Ascending From Ashes’ which is spread over two parts that begins with some serene piano work and is a very sweet track with good leads on part one before a solid thrash riff comes in and signals the start of part two. A big bounce factor is employed here too as the track changes direction at seemingly random points before returning to the main body of the song.
I found ‘The Demon Prevails’ enjoyable at first but winced slightly at the folky style elements which were tolerable as the track kept the pace and style changing fully engaged. The track was spoiled totally by the folky chants which I deplore. The longer ‘Once Called For Redemption’ has more piano and plods along nicely building subtly in pace to semi-blast but it’s still infused with synths. The attempt to create an epic song works, just about, but it needs something more explosive in the middle before ending in an acoustic fashion. If you’re in the mood for some thing a bit different that crosses a few genres then you may enjoy this.
http://www.darkness-ablaze.de
http://www.myspace.com/darknessablaze
