| CD REVIEW Darker It Gets |
 |
Band : Darker It Gets There's not a lot of background info about this Belgian band, but here's what we know... 1) (Line-up) The band consists of singers Laban Carlier and Thomas Vervaeke (the latter a quite young-looking chap), guitarists Geert Verthé and Bjorn Coysman, bassist Toon Vanhoutte, and drummer Dries Claeys. 2) (Geography) The band is based around Kortrijk, a city rich in history when it comes to Hardcore/ Metal crossover bands, in fact the term H8000 comes from the town's postal code. 3) (Previous experiences) Although the band is rather young, all members have had experience in previous bands, those with a diverse background ranging from Punk To Metal, over Hardcore. 4) (Trivia) DIG has a cool logo, which looks exactly the same when put upside-down. 5) (Recordings) DIG recorded their debut full-length (7 songs plus intro for an album length of just under 31 minutes) at Kris Belaen's CCR Studio during July of this year! As my personal assessment can hardly be seen as a “fact”, we'll not make that point 6, eh!? At any rate, the guys make a very nice hybrid of Melodic Death Metal (with great twin leads, adding a certain degree of “technical” play) with a Thrash Metal basis, in which occasional spurts of Hardcore come through...mostly in the higher pitched and semi-screamed vocal stylings of the second singer (and I'm guessing that's Thomas). Personally, I feel he's a great alternation against Laban's deeper growls, and I think he's also responsible for the couple of cleaner vocals (and the spoken word bit in the intro of the album's title track). The album is opened with the short and eerie “Sedo Pro Tempestas” (and for those not into Latin – that's a pun towards one of the journalists nót mentioned by name later – this translates to “Silence Before The Storm” - I mean, I didn't learn any Latin either, you know, but I have some knowledge of the South European languages to be able to make out this much...and didn't even need to use an online translator to get thus far...just basic common knowledge) with the words “Darker and darker and darker it gets” being repeated in a crescendo way (with some crescendo viola towards the end to boot), before exploding into the album's opening song “Monsters Or Victims”. To me, the band's music sounds very mature overall, both in songwriting and performing skills, but apparently some early reviewers of the album felt differently. Possibly (mis)led by the young appearance of our “young chap”, and most perhaps also in a mood of “if it's not completely our thing, what can we pull out of proportion to say something negative” (I feel a lót of negativity from music journalists these days, even from those in the “major leagues” - meaning bigger magazines). Well, to each his/ her own, but I prefer to keep a positive outlook on life as a whole. And you can check how yoù feel about the band's music for yourselves by listening to the two great songs (“Aboa (Ruler Of The Dark)” is possibly the album's best track – as well as being the longest one – and during “Darker It Gets” you get short repeats of the album's opening track, with this time a complete song built around it – great stuff, this!!!) posted at myspace.com/darkeritgets! Personally, I'm looking forward to a next album by these guys, and I recommend open-minded lovers of Metalcore, the H8000 style, to give this band a listen, maybe pick up a concert of the band as well! 93/100 Tony. |