CoC : The Darksend - Unsunned : Review

The Darksend - _Unsunned_
(Head Not Found, 1997)
by: Drew Snow (8 out of 10)

Before receiving _Unsunned_, I'd never heard, nor heard of, The Darksend at all, so I didn't really know what to expect. Luckily though, I was pleasantly surprised. Their style is mostly Swedish melodic black metal, in the vein of Dawn and Marduk (okay, so Marduk aren't that melodic), with a lot of melodic death metal influence from the likes of Dark Tranquillity and others of their ilk. Not being able to rely on originality, The Darksend instead create extremely fast, melodic compositions, broken up by slower mid-paced reprieves, and punctuated with a few thrashy solos. The vocals aren't too bad, similar in style to Dawn, but a little more whiny sounding, unfortunately. The production is good enough, though maybe a little thicker than others (relatively speaking, this is no Mortician production job), but it gets the job done with no major problems. The most important part of _Unsunned_, like most albums of its type, are the guitar melodies, and there are few disappointments here. You won't find anything comparable in quality to the best from D.T. or Dawn, but they certainly suffice, and comprise most of the highlights of the album. There's not too much else to say about The Darksend that you couldn't have read in any other review of its genre, except that it's just as good as any of the others.

(article published 16/3/1997)

ALBUMS
12/8/2001	P Azevedo	6	The Darksend - Antichrist in Excelsis