Dawn Of A Dark Age - The Six Elements: Vol 1 Earth
This Italian duo of Vittorio Sabelli and Pierluigi D'Amario are attempting a very ambitious project of six albums as some form of hexology, taking on the five elements initially starting as the album title indicates with earth. Blut Aus Nord did their trilogy of albums to considerable success so the bar has been set extremely high for multi-instrumentalist Vittorio (aka Euronymos) and vocalist Pierluigi (aka Buran). The music is complex and highly ambitious as stated and really does need considering as a whole concept divided into six parts that starts with 'Cold Winter' and a tribal style drum fill with piano initiates proceedings before delving into raw stripped down black metal with scathing vocals. The speed is manic in parts but where this band challenges the listener is the ear jarring tempo changes and accompanying riff deviations. At first your brain is bamboozled by what you're hearing but as you hit 'The Last Prayer' things fall into place as each tune links very subtly with the next as the closing piano to the opener links into 'The Last Prayer' very smoothly. A strange deformed guitar sound eventually greets you before a spacey almost otherworldly lead takes over. The calming section is tormenting, keeping you at bated breath as you await the next tumultuous change. Despondent and drear in its melody 'Raped Earth', an instrumental, is dour but eclectic and had me thinking about Solefald and the seemingly weird insertions of random components that just seem to work overall.
'Euronymos Army' comes at you with a killing blow but is adorned by gradations in pace that are enthralling as they are confusing. A wondrous tune and at times totally mental leads perfectly into 'Dawn Of A Darkage' with some brass instrumentation very like a saxophone and wind effects. Eerily created it comes across as dark romanticism, gothic slightly but drear again with pernicious vocals. The riff change within the track is awesome, very old school with huge amounts of charisma the song dips and dives into brass instrumentation and I guess the Norwegian Shining is an obvious similarity but not quite as bonkers as the Norwegians.
Closing this album is an outro piece of acoustic musicianship, sublime and reminiscent of the tranquil Burzum stuff it also had me thinking my Mike Oldfield LPs. I am eagerly going to await the following albums in this series as this debut is terrific and intelligent sonic dark art.
'Euronymos Army' comes at you with a killing blow but is adorned by gradations in pace that are enthralling as they are confusing. A wondrous tune and at times totally mental leads perfectly into 'Dawn Of A Darkage' with some brass instrumentation very like a saxophone and wind effects. Eerily created it comes across as dark romanticism, gothic slightly but drear again with pernicious vocals. The riff change within the track is awesome, very old school with huge amounts of charisma the song dips and dives into brass instrumentation and I guess the Norwegian Shining is an obvious similarity but not quite as bonkers as the Norwegians.
Closing this album is an outro piece of acoustic musicianship, sublime and reminiscent of the tranquil Burzum stuff it also had me thinking my Mike Oldfield LPs. I am eagerly going to await the following albums in this series as this debut is terrific and intelligent sonic dark art.
- Cold Winter
- The Last Prayer
- Raped Earth
- Eurynomos Army
- Dawn Of A Dark Age
- Outro n. 1
Self released
Reviewer: twansibon
Aug 26, 2014
Aug 26, 2014
Next review:
We're Wolves - Energy Crisis
Share this:
