Dark Matter- Nebula to Black Hole

Label: My Kingdom Music
Releasedate: 31.01.2020

Dark Matter is a Dark/Doom Metal Band with the international line-up made in earth while earth is not their home.

This Dark Matter album contains 8 tracks, created in 10 countries with the assistance of 15 ‘featuring’ artists and it is nothing what you expect.

‘Except Love’ is the first track on this album; it starts of like any meditation track with a voice-over explaining the existence of being a human. About 2/3 into the song the guitars start wailing and take you on a spiritual journey.

‘Earthless Child’ with the haunting voice of Anaé is eerie and ethereal. Her soprano voice dominates half of this track where it then speeds up with instrumental support until the end.

‘Theory of X’ gives you an intro which is fast and glorious and – until the “vocals” kick in – I enjoyed it. Not a fan of grunts where you cannot understand what is being said/sung. Final 2 minutes of the song introduces Sahoora’s arabic influenced vocals against a doom metal backing track, somehow it works!

‘Imperfect Universe’ is very reminiscent to any other female fronted symphonic band. Anaé’s Soprano voice against heavy guitars and drums, unfortunately the male vocals are unclear and not in a language I speak. The track itself is quite well composed and executed.

‘Void wor(l)d’ again Anaé singing against a monotonous droning sound from a harmonium, bagpipe or even a Bulgarian “gajda”. Very meditative and melancholic.

‘Funeral Pt1’ melancholic sounding eulegy as a monologue against haunting background music.

‘Funeral Pt2’ continuous on the same trend; vocal against a droning sound, combined with single piano keys. Singing vocals and grunts take over from 1 minute in and the music becomes more metal like. Very slow track with a suberb guitar solo in the first half of the song. Then an interlude like the beginning of the song, after which Cecilie Langlie takes over the vocals. Her angelic voice is beautiful in combination with acoustic guitars and simple drums riffs.

The last track ‘Black Hole’ is a long one, lasting 9 minutes. Intro is a 2 minute long female-male dialog against haunting background music. After which the song becomes more bombastic, but does not pick up pace. It is a male voice which dominates the track until 5 minutes in, when there is no sound at all until a female voice ‘replies’.The song continues with light piano music until the end.

Welllllll…. what shall I say? A very diverse Dark Matter album with ever-changing music, mostly led by the use of 15 different musicians from various countries. Not one I will remember or keep, but hey that is my prerogative.

Line up:

Line-up:
Aria Mghaddam – vocals, guitars;
Mehdi 14CH – guitars

Guest musician:
Daniel Cavanagh (Anathema founder): vocals on track 1;
Fab Regmann (Antimatter, Disbelief): drums on track 1;
Luís Fazendeiro (Painted Black, Sleeping Pulse): guitars on track 2;
Niko Panagopoulos (In The Silence): drums on track 2;
Anaé (Adrana): vocals on track 2, 4, 5;
Andi Rohde (Ohrenfeindt): drums on track 3;
Sahoora: vocals on track 3;
Tomasz Pilasiewicz (Corphagy): drums on track 4;
Déhà (real name Olmo Lipani – Earthling band): bass on track 4, 7;
Thomas Helm (Empyrium): vocals on track 6;
Juuso Raatikainen (Heathen Hoof, Hedonihil, Swallow the Sun): drums on track 7;
Ana Carolina: vocals on track 7;
Kamand Paymani: vocals on track 7;
Cecilie Langlie (Dævvskævv, Caoimhin, Omit): vocals on track 8;
Kevin Pribulsky (Caoimhin, The Unknown): piano and guitars on track 8

Links:

Facebook
Bandcamp