SYRACH

My first impression of this album was with the front cover and it was a good one to start with. A dark, atmospheric scene featuring three hooded men set against moodily grim sky with a collection of randomly placed gothic things at the bottom which perhaps over-emphasise the darkness. However, on closer inspection the two men behind the middle one are direct copies, just darkened and the bottom right of the cover is a flipped version of the bottom left. They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but if I did I’d come to the same conclusion as if I hadn’t. It’s a cheaply produced, very raw record; while it doesn’t seem to have had much consideration regarding structure it oozes with gothic style and has a lot of good ideas. ‘A Dark Burial’ is one of the rare albums I’ve heard where I can appreciate what every member has brought to the overall sound, albeit in a bittersweet fashion. Despite the vocalist not sounding exactly enthused with his performance his growls are nicely understandable at many key parts which I enjoyed, there were many good riffs throughout the album although more on that later… the drumming really helped pick up the pace during what could have been some very dull moments on the album, but bassist Øystein’s efforts shone through the most, providing a somber backdrop that created a wonderfully dark atmosphere throughout many parts of the album. As I said earlier, the song structure is the album’s biggest weakness, the tempo switches so often and so seemingly random that it can totally ruin a nice evil vibe. In other sections, and especially on instrumental finale ‘Ouroboros’, a riff can go from being brilliant to boring after listening to it being repeated for so long. ‘A Mourner’s Kiss’ is possibly my favourite track of the album, it falls into the trap most of the songs here do by having a very plain intro but once it picks up towards the middle it gets into some good head bangingly harsh material. Overall this album could have been better but it’s got some brilliant moments, I worry I could be somewhat biased since I like my music fast so the Doom Metal elements really didn’t appeal to me.

LABEL:

FORMAT:

Napalm Records

Album

A DARK BURIAL

Review by Nicholas Dishington

RUNNING TIME:

45:51

RELEASE DATE:

27th July 2009

TRACK LISTING

1) Curse The Souls
2) The River's Rage
3) A Dark Burial
4) A Mourner's Kiss
5) In Darkness I Sigh
6) Ouroboros

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:

Norway

"...while it doesn’t seem to have had much consideration regarding structure it oozes with gothic style..."