The Black Stone

Polish black metal from the mid-'nineties generally paled in comparison to the scene across the sea in Norway, but there were a few standouts. Darkstorm is a relatively obscure black metal trio from Poland whose 1996 full-length debut combines a number of different effects and influences. Kicking off with the horrifying "The War," jolts of electricity ring out, and screams from vocalist/guitarist/frontman Lord Darkstorm cry into the abyss as the eerie, dark tone is set.

This album is both typical of and divergent from much of the black metal of its day. Crude production and Burzum-esque screams are frequent, with simplistic but emotive drum patterns propelling the songs around an elusive ambience. The synthesizers aren't to the theatricality or degree of an Emperor, but they do add a mesmerizing and hypnotic quality to songs like "The Sun of Black," a slower cut that again plays into the ambient tendencies of black metal. If their net was cast wide enough, it's not impossible to imagine this album inspiring a band like Mirrothrone down the line.

"Eternity" plays on the harmonic, angelic sound that black metal can ironically adopt, with some unorthodox synthesizer patterns that sound like they were ripped from Halo's soundtrack. Unfortunately, they are pigeonholed into the song a bit awkwardly, without any transition for when they appear, but they do add a nice backing piece for the vocals. The vocal performance on this album is excellent, by the way, easily the main selling point. Lord Darkstorm sounds purely evil, but doesn't let the vocals get too out of hand. A good example is "Of the Old Ones... (Trance Remix)," where he sounds possessed over a pretty solid instrumental.

The B-side of this album features some pretty gruesome performances, both from Paimon on the drums and Piąty on keyboards, as well as Lord Darkstorm whose vocals only seem to improve. The song structures never get too complex but they do remain pretty free-form, sometimes the band will stop playing altogether and let the vocals completely takeover, maybe with a hint of ambient noise peeking through the mix. It is hard to decipher the guitar from the synthesizers at times, given that the production is very poor quality, and the lack of bass on this record is definitely an issue. Some bass work would have added more punch to these songs when the riffs and drums collide (unless it is there and just mixed very low).

"For Night I Die" and "Nocturnal Seeds" have some of the most interesting concepts, with a massive focus shifted to the atmosphere of these songs, as opposed to the rhythm, groove, or technical prowess of the instrumentation. The latter features some pretty solid drumming, but the main subject is undoubtedly the crescendo of the synthesizers in the background creating an otherworldly feel to the song. These synthesizer garnishes may be small, but they are definitely appreciated on this record. And although the band may lose direction at some points, there are certainly a lot of memorable moments that showcase a band that had the potential to lead the Polish black metal scenes if things had gone another way. Instead, they were mostly lost in the sands of time, their debut album only being released on 500 individual copies. Check it out online if you can, because there is some quality music here.