{"id":93806,"date":"2022-05-27T00:00:15","date_gmt":"2022-05-26T23:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=93806"},"modified":"2022-06-09T16:32:08","modified_gmt":"2022-06-09T15:32:08","slug":"album-review-darkened-the-black-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-darkened-the-black-winter\/","title":{"rendered":"DARKENED – The Black Winter (2022) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

DARKENED
The Black Winter<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nEdged Circle Productions (2022)<\/span>
Rating: 7\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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This international death metal combo is not a band I\u2019ve followed too closely, although I did pick up their Mourn The Dying Light<\/em> EP which was released earlier this year.<\/p>\n

I prefer my death metal to be gloomy, squalid and downright rotten, whereas Darkened provide a lot of melody and, above all, a far cleaner sound. And that\u2019s evident once again with this new release where virtually every guitar solo hints at the more traditional aspects of metal with doomier touches, while in general the band flashes between Swedish-styled ground n\u2019 pound flurries alongside simplistic battering.<\/p>\n

For those unaware, Darkened have been doing the rounds since 2018 and is a super group somewhat, with a line-up consisting of vocalist Gord Olson (AngelBlast), guitarists Hempa Brynolfsson (AngelBlast) and Linus Nirbrant (This Ending), bassist Tobias Cristiansson (Grave), and drummer Andrew Whale (ex-Bolt Thrower, ex-Memoriam).<\/p>\n

So, the members have certainly been around and there\u2019s a lot of influence to consume, but it\u2019s fair to say that Darkened doesn\u2019t really deviate from its path as a rather upbeat, refreshing and gnashing example of modern day death metal where buzzsaw riffs work in tandem with fiery melodic leads, drums rattle in nifty, clean fashion and the vocals are somewhat standard for what I\u2019d consider to be labelled as accessible modern death metal.<\/p>\n

The slower segments of this record \u2013 the band\u2019s sophomore outing \u2013 are to be savoured and one has to be impressed by the blazing leads, particularly on a track like \u2018Terminal Lucidity\u2019 which brings flashes of pace alongside more melancholic strains, even if the crisp production never allows the record to have a boggy feel.<\/p>\n

To an extent, much of The Black Winter<\/em> feels cold and clinical, whether it\u2019s the obliterating qualities of the title track with its razor-sharp riffing, the hammering prowess of \u2018Swallowed By The World\u2019, or the gargantuan riffage of \u2018Flayed\u2019. There\u2019s nary a murky slog in sight even when the band does slow down, and because of that hasty edge The Black Winter<\/em> has to rely on the vocal outbursts to give some sense of heaviness.<\/p>\n

There are even streaks of black metal dissonance, again displayed on a track such as the aforementioned \u2018Flayed\u2019, but that\u2019s not to say it\u2019s not a heavy album. \u2018Plague Of Despair\u2019 is a fine example of the band exhibiting a grinding aesthetic with those ominous chugs, which is what made Andrew Whale\u2019s previous band Memoriam more accessible, albeit lacklustre.<\/p>\n

The end result here is an album brimming with Swedish nuances yet at times edging towards a British no-nonsense charm. However, occasionally it can feel a tad generic even though brisk with aggression. This is quality death metal of that I\u2019ve no doubt, but when one considers the competition The Black Winter<\/em> is not going to be on heavy rotate in my house.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DARKENEDThe Black Winter Edged Circle Productions (2022)Rating: 7\/10 This international death metal combo is not a band I\u2019ve followed too closely, although I did pick up their Mourn The Dying Light EP which was released earlier this year. I prefer my death metal to be gloomy, squalid and downright rotten, whereas Darkened provide a lot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,4826],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-darkened"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93806"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93808,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93806\/revisions\/93808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}