Well, this CD was not as bad as I first expected. Not being overly thrilled by what Candlelight has been pimping for the last couple of years; this disc seemed like another of those sub-par albums at first. On this last spin though, I caught myself actually enjoying some tracks; a nice surprise on a rainy day. That being said, I don't mean to claim Elect Darkness as something awesome, but it does have its moments, and a certain personality.
I guess we can call their music melodic Black Metal as a general description. To be more specific, their take has a bit of an adventurous and avant-gardist touch. The very good production work is powerful; beefing up the bass and drum parts, while making the riffs sounding pretty crunchy. The lead guitar involves multiple personalities, sometimes it is clean arpeggios; other times it is more on the psychedelic side. The vocals on this album are a bit on the psychotic edge, varying from rasps to clean, as well as theatrical. As for the compositions, I found these ones pretty nice to listen to: "Southern Tribes" (crushing), "Beyond the Rupture" (doom) and the intense closer "A Bitter Lesson".
Elect Darkness has been sitting on my desk for quite some times now, and I should have worked on it before, since it does have some tasty darkness.
Track listing:
1 - Underworld
2 - Western Plague
3 - Southern Tribes
4 - Sinrush
5 - Beyond the Rupture
6 - Elect Darkness
7 - Enthusiasm
8 - Eastern Minions
9 - Northern Floods
10 - Vindicator
11 - A Bitter Lesson