CoC : The Darksend - Antichrist in Excelsis : Review

The Darksend - _Antichrist in Excelsis_
(X-treme Records, 2000)
by: Pedro Azevedo (6 out of 10)

This is one of those completely uninspiring album titles that I actually find intriguing, though only in the sense that it makes me wonder whether the music is going to be as generic as it indicates. Although they seem to have drawn great inspiration from Emperor for their album cover, it turns out to be Dissection and Naglfar that The Darksend most often try to emulate. The band's obvious penchant for melodic black metal is reinforced by the occasional use of female vocals and acoustic guitars. Despite their complete lack of originality and thematic interest, The Darksend generally do manage to keep their head above water and the music usually moves along nicely -- this also in spite of the rather mediocre vocals. By the way, one has to notice the consistency of their song titles, such as: "Hell's Manifesto", "Lightmare", "Profanity Be My Name" and "Paradise, Thy Name Is Hell". This last one closes the album and consists of some nice female vocals accompanied by acoustic guitar... until the band's rather irritating vocalist pompously proclaims that "We are the Darksend, and we seek to dominate the worlds both spiritual and mundane, and we shall -- WE SHALL". And thus the album ends: in what I perceive as rather comical fashion, unless you had to pay for this record. Nevertheless, The Darksend do their job reasonably well most of the time, and even though the record suffers from considerable irregularity, the band does achieve several good passages (but then they tend to sound reminiscent of some other band). Overall, however, despite their reasonable competency at creating Swedish melodic black metal, The Darksend do not add any real originality or extra spark to the mix, nor do they get anywhere near challenging the bands who inspired them.

(article published 12/8/2001)

ALBUMS
3/16/1997	D Schinzel	8	The Darksend - Unsunned