All Dark Things

The mixing of genres can be a tricky business. Sometimes it can open new doors and lead to new soundscapes that can be expanded and developed. Other times it can sound like a forced mish mash of things that can sound even less imaginative than just sticking to one style. (For Example: Insert heavy death metal part here. Insert acoustic folk bit here. Return to death metal part etc.) Metal is a genre that has spawned countless subgenres that consist of the mixing of different styles; Folk Metal (folk and metal), blackened death metal (black metal and death metal) and erm melodic trance metal? Bands even choose to go beyond just mixing two styles and their sound consists of a very wide musical vocabulary and I embrace a lot of these bands, but I don’t think I’ve heard a metal release quite as diverse as ‘All Dark Things’.

The Metal Archives page for ‘Dark Metamorphosis’ will tell you that this one man band plays black metal. That is definitely true for the releases that came before this one, but this release goes far beyond black metal. There are plenty of black metal moments that occur in the songs, but this comes along with a whole range of other styles.

The album features everything from thrashy riffing to ambient synth parts. There are some blistering solos and there is some melancholic acoustic playing, but what I think is most impressive is none of this sounds forced. All the different changes blend effortlessly into one another and they provided enough contrast to keep me engaged for all of the fourteen tracks.

I was particularly impressed by the wide range of vocal techniques covered on this album. Gutturals, shrieks, rasps, growls, clean singing, choral singing, you name it, it’s here. I also thought it was really interesting where these vocal techniques were placed. Guttural vocals are something that you’d expect to hear on top of a really heavy part, but they’re used over some melodic riffing which I think worked quite nicely. My only complaint about the vocals is that the clean vocals are sometimes drowned out by the guitar, but this is only a minor thing.

Count Draclecarde’s drum programming has always managed to impress me. There are some really nice bass drum patterns with added demisemiquavers which give the drums a kind of Mysticum feel. Overall the guitar tone is really good, really gritty with a lot of bite. I would have personally maybe used a bit less reverb on the solos, but that’s just my own personal preference.

I recommend this album to pretty much anyone who’s into extreme metal. Whatever you’re into there’s something on this album for you, and as the title says this album does have ‘All the Dark Things’ (or most of them if you want to be picky). This latest release by Dark Metamorphosis is a celebration of music that is dark and extreme, and should be checked out by anyone who has a taste for heavy underground music.

Personal favourites: Who Can Stop the Rain? The Bite Waking Up All the Dark Things