Dark Tranquility, Dark Funeral, Dark Fortress, Dark Suns, Darkest Hour…there's no shortage of bands that like to call themselves something on the 'dark' side of the fence. Add Germany's Dark Age to the mix, as they unleash their latest platter of melodic death metal called Acedia on AFM Records. Though I call them 'melodic death metal', that's probably not so accurate after all. Dark Age combines the fury of Dark Tranquility with symphonic gothic metal and melodic metalcore for a somewhat unique sound.
The mixing of clean, melodic vocals with death metal growls works great on opener "Kingdom Nevercome" and the crushing yet extremely catchy "Devote Yourself to Nothing", while the slightly gothic "Neon Gardens" features completely clean vocals, heavy riffs, and haunting keyboards. Those chilling keyboards again appear on the bombastic yet gloomy "Snake of June", a tune that should certainly appeal to Katatonia fans, and the big, fat riffs of "Zeitgeist" and "10 Steps to Nausea" are highly addicting from every angle. When the band decides to go full throttle melodic death metal, which they do on "Underneath These Burdens", the results are quite solid. Unfortunately, "All the Unfulfilled" sounds like Linkin Park trying to inject some extreme metal in their sound, and "Babylon Riots" sees the band coming dangerously close to some of Fear Factory's lesser efforts, but overall there's a lot to like here.
Acedia succeeds for the most part, and I think metal fans who are into the whole clean vocals mixed with growls approach should really dig a lot of what is going on here. Dark Age is definitely a band to put on your radar. Though they are not quite on the level of a band like Scar Symmetry or even Mercenary, they have enough going on to suggest that Acedia is just the tip of the iceberg and much greater things are in their future.
Track Listing
1) Kingdom Nevercome
2) Devote Yourself to Nothing
3) Neon Gardens
4) Snake of June
5) Zeitgeist
6) 10 Steps to Nausea
7) Halo Meridian
8) Underneath these Burdens
9) All the Unfulfilled
10) Babylon Riots
11) Myself Heretic
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