DARKSIDE

Shadowfields

ROCK REPORT / Czech Republic 97

Honza Petricko

The cry of a newborn child, majestic keyboard patterns, female vocals, orchestral arrangements – all 
this should be leading to the fact that, the best austrian death metal band have decided to record an 
overwhelming doomsymphonie by copying hundred times heard things. 
No way.
The band has ( to my relief ) renounced with taste to warmed up clichees of effects and goes the direct 
way of expression paired with carefull yused elements of gothic doom. Even in moments, where the silvery 
female vocals flow through your ears ( f.i. Shades Of Pictures In Grey) the result is never romantic 
cliche-like, because Wolfgang sets a counterpoint with his „second“ voice building a hardened contrast 
of brutality and aggression. The organic conglomerate of the mentioned brutality and soulfull 
sensitivity is the main ace and weapon of this very good album. Heaviness without compromises, typical 
for death metal, grows the an audiophile hypnosis, riffs are smashed on precise rythem work, from the 
darkness you can cite peaking short lightning of fragments of short melodies. The animalic vocals of 
Peter mix up with virginal female voices and so enlightens the dawn of the gods. DARKSIDE – this means a 
foaming ocean. Sometimes promising silence, just to become a tsunami in the next moment, nawing angrily 
on the washed out shores. The wirling sinuswaves of silence and movement express life itself, only 
sharper, more unexpected and machine-like.
A big deal of the whole impression goes to the unheard sound. It is exceptionally raw ( also brutal) and 
very original in ist „Colouring“, you never heard something like this over the past years, I bet to lay 
my head on the poisoned keyboards of Wolfgang. Dark side of the doom....