CoC : Dark - Endless Dreams of Sadness : Review

Dark - _Endless Dreams of Sadness_
(Great Unlimited Noises, 1997)
by: Pedro Azevedo (7 out of 10)

These guys really try to fool people. It's almost like they don't want people to buy their album. First off, an extremely ugly, unremarkable, simplistic, -crap- four letter (Dark) logo taking up half the front cover. Gee, great. Then the title, _Endless Dreams of Sadness_, which may get quite a few guys who enjoy doom (like myself) to take a listen, but most of them (unlike myself) will drop this CD, they won't buy it. Why? Because it's not doom - Dark are actually a German death metal band who incorporates keyboards to add some extra melody. You're probably thinking of Crematory by now, but these guys lean more towards death and aren't as melodic as Crematory - perhaps not as good either, at least not as good as _Illusions_. But enough of that, because Dark do have a sound of their own, even if they tend to sometimes sound a bit like a mix of several other bands. This is a 60-minute album, none of the tracks being what you'd call slow (some are actually pretty damn fast-paced), through which Dark use both strong death metal parts and more melodic and ambient passages. They have a consistent sound: the drumming is excellent and very powerful, the grunts are pretty good and strong too, and the rest fits in nicely, the guitars showing enough strength when the keyboards aren't there. Speaking of keyboards, which are the main reason why Dark aren't just "another" death metal band, they use keys most of the time throughout the album, both for melody and for background or ambient parts. The songwriting is very reasonable, and Dark come up with several interesting riffs and keyboard melodies. They also incorporate some acoustic guitars and female vocals here and there. Dark manage to keep the quality level high enough during the album - they hardly ever blow you away, although there are some damn good parts, but they do keep up a very interesting album during the whole 60 minutes, thus assuring a good buy for any fan of melodic death metal. Besides, they keep shifting styles during each track, so you're unlikely to get bored. Interesting stuff, like I said, it won't blow you away but it does have the potential to keep you interested for 60 minutes, which is well above the average.

(article published 9/4/1997)