Matters of the Dark

I don’t know about you, but if you ask me, playing metal shouldn’t be complicated. Have a vocalist who can sing in tune, play a few riffs that stick in your head…stick a song together and voila. Oh, sure, specific styles require a certain amount of musical skill - but these are obviously exceptions to the rule.

Tad Morose, too, realized that keeping things simple often works best…except that in this case it doesn’t. Matters of the Dark sounds extremely stripped down when compared to the surrounding albums and while this should be fine in theory, I’m having a hard time sitting through it. The band’s songwriting formula has become predictable here; you’ve got a speedier track here, a groove-esque tune there and everything ranges from 3 to 5 minutes. Forget about adventurous epics, ballads of emotional weight or climaxes that will surprise you for the best; once you’ve heard the first 3 songs you can pretty much guess that the rest of the album will follow suit.

The songs live and die by the choruses and with a few exceptions here and there, it’s only the vocals that make Matters of the Dark appealing. The combination of Urban Breed’s skill and imagination makes him stand out once more; be it thanks to his swaggering bark, some blistering high notes or a memorable chorus. The weak link is Christer Andersson; most of the time some simplistic rhythm section supports the vocals and to me, this is a wasted opportunity. Occasionally he manages to conjure some thick grooves, releases some hard-hitting palm-muted chugs or plays some speedy riffs, but even then his riffs hardly result into worthy songs. You’ve got the generic up-tempo cuts like ‘’I Know Your Name’’, snooze groove such as ‘’Don’t Pray for Me’’, a been-there-done-that angry mid-paced affair by the name of ‘’New Clear Skies''...you name it.

A few tracks stand out, even if they’re hardly on the same level as the highlights of Undead or Modus Vivendi. In fact, Matters of the Dark starts off rather well; ‘’Sword of Retribution’’ has the advantage of alternating between these mean verses and a hopeful chorus; while the riffs aren’t of any top-class by any means, they put the right amount of drive to it. The rousing title track rules as well and it’s clearly faster than anything that you could find on Undead. It features a certain amount of nasty riffing that I absolutely approve of, even though I could have done without the guest vocals. I also have a soft spot for ‘’Riding the Beast’’, which owes its success to a memorable, yet clearly melodic riff and the track also features a heartfelt solo between Urban Breed’s commanding vocal shouts; making it the best example of the vocal-oriented tunes on the album.

I wish I could have been more enthusiastic about the rest of Matters of the Dark, but no matter how hard I try, the remaining songs sounds sound far less inspired to me. Oh, the choruses of ‘’Ethereal Soul’’, ‘’New Clear Skies’’ and ‘’Don’t Pray for Me’’ sound a lot of fun, but I wish I could say the same about the actual songs. Yet, the worst offenders would be ‘’Reason of the Ghost’’ and ‘’The Devil’s Finger’’. Both tracks feature some creepy guitar lines that are surprising at least, but otherwise start to drag on quickly and considering the short length of these tracks that’s almost an accomplishment! The former only starts to pick up after the three minute mark with a juicy melodic riff, even if Urban Breed starts to repeat the song title in case you forgot what the track was called and the latter recalls Urban Breed telling a story that was made up at the last minute with no catchy hook, quality riff, or addictive chorus in sight.

To sum it up: Matters of the Dark is the kind of stuff that you’d sing along to in the shower, but not something that makes you bang your head out of joy and excitement. The highlights could have worked just fine as an EP, but in its entirely, Matters of the Dark is clearly the weakest album from the band’s early 00’s era.

This review was originally written for antichristmagazine.com

Undead, being a coherent and atmospheric masterpiece of old-school power metal, is a nigh-insurmountable act to follow, but damn if Krunt Andersson and his band of not-so-merrie metalheads don’t give it the old college try, and how. As it happens, Matters of the Dark is very nearly as persuasive and powerful an album as its immediate predecessor, and I’m nowhere near close to complaining about that! In fact, I’m sure the question arose, of how to match the absolute megaton destruction of Undead, and someone hit upon the inspired idea of inviting Charles Rytkönen, fellow Bollnäs native and Morgana Lefay’s throat-ripping frontman, to do guest vocals alongside Urban. That decision alone puts this album on a lofty bar.

Tad Morose haven’t lost a bit of their former melodic catchiness, their talent for eerie soundscape mood-building, their ability to seamlessly alternate between doomy and speedy tempos, or their willingness to stomp you into dust with just plain sheer massive fucking old-school riffage. Let’s take just a couple of examples – firstly, the title track. ‘Matters of the Dark’ opens with a single distorted hook and wastes no time slamming down an airtight drum line to match it. And then Breed and Rytkönen take turns snarling out the premonitions of evil and tyranny that the song’s title forebodes. The guitarwork is as jagged and as unrelentingly heavy as you’ll find on Nevermore’s best, with plenty of Smolski-era Rage-styled squeal and crunch, but once the chorus hits, Breed brings showman-like to the fore an infectious, classic rock melody that out-and-out dares you to sing along. ‘Your flesh and your soul will burn!’

And ‘New Clear Skies’, as something of a counterpoint, alternates an ominous doomy blare with a quieter, harmonious but still-catchy chorus that almost slides right by you. If Threshold in their later albums (Dead Reckoning and forward) sometimes approached compositions redolent of Tad, this is Tad taking a leaf somewhat out of Threshold’s book – or more likely, giving a nod to their older material. They do still play around a bit with certain ‘progressions’ and vocal effects, but still steer well clear of obtrusive or pretentious territory.

Of course, there are numerous other points worthy of mention: the emotion-brimming slow buildup of ‘Ethereal Soul’, the weird, reverb-heavy spookiness of ‘Reason of the Ghost’ (this seems to be what they were going for on Sender of Thoughts, but they’ve filled that concept out here much more nicely), the sheer momentum of ‘Riding the Beast’ which puts something like 95% of other mid-tempo power metal anthems to shame. There’s a hell of a lot on this album to appreciate.

Ultimately, my only bone to pick with Matters of the Dark – and it really isn’t even that much of a bone – is that it’s not quite as brilliant as their prior album was. The wild genius of Undead: its unique blend of progressive, thrash and doom elements with eldritch atmospherics and disconcerting storytelling – all that’s clearly not gone here, as I’ve gone to some lengths above to describe, but it is slightly withdrawn. Urban Breed is clearly taking a more straightforward, aggressive, Rytkönen-like direction with his singing here; but he’s missing a few shades of emotional nuance – and the instrumentation has followed suit.

There’s no question that Undead saw Krunt and Co. moving slightly away from his Crimson Glory fandom and looking in other directions for creative inspiration. There’s definitely shades of The Dark / Blessing-era Metal Church in here, as several other of the reviewers here have mentioned to their credit – that may be Urban Breed’s contribution. But the end result is still an album with variety, thoughtful composition, Eastern motifs, atmospheric buildup and – not least – plenty of old-school ‘80’s USPM chops. No blame to them at all if it didn’t quite stand even with their previous peak, they still scaled some serious heights with Matters.

19 / 20

Tad Morose is awesome. They’re one of the best power metal bands around, and their last three albums were all stellar in some measure. This one is the least-awesome of them, and when compared to monsters like Undead and Modus Vivendi, that just means it isn’t absolutely frigging world-crushing. This is Matters of the Dark, sort of the halfway point between the arcane spellbinding power of the previous album and the more commercial, balls-out riffing of its successor album.

The band works with simpler, less ambitious songwriting here. The songs all hover around the 3:45-4:45 length and generally adhere to simpler, more Iced Earth-ish templates, although this is way better than anything that band ever recorded. Urban Breed’s charismatic, midranged voice powers out, headstrong over the grooving, pulsating rhythms and the stodgy, headbang-friendly riffs. One complaint leveled at this is that it sometimes sticks too much to the same tempo, which is something I can see as a detriment, and I guess it’s the main reason this isn’t as good as the other two classic Tad Morose albums, which both had more dynamic and epic tunes to mix up the more pugilistic tunes, which this album is exclusively filled with.

But the songwriting shines through and this is still pretty damn awesome, anyway. Early on you get killers like “Sword of Retribution,” which is a veritable clinic on how to write this kind of heavier, more traditional-metal influenced power metal, the volleying title track, which has Charles Rytkonen’s throaty rasp dueling with Breed’s cleaner snarl, and the pounding, airy “Ethereal Soul.” And later you get great songs like “Riding the Beast” and the excellent duo of the doomy “Reason of the Ghost” and the almost proggy introspection of “The Devil’s Finger.” There’s no great secret to this except that the band has cooked up addictive, hooky songs. Power metal fans not addicted to shit like Rhapsody should go get this immediately, as it is a commandeering, boss album of rocking, hook-filled songs that you need in your life. Gotta love Tad Morose.

Oh my … this band is so f*cking underrated. I don't know why, but they seem to be totally unknown, although they have released a bunch of good albums. They changed their style during the years, and I personally like the newer ones more than the older ones, so "A Mended Rhyme" was the first really good album for me. So what’s the difference? While the older ones were more dark and progressive, this album shows the more aggressive and faster side of Tad Morose. The production is thick and heavy and fits perfect to the riff-oriented music. Songs like "Sword Of Retribution" and "Matters Of The Dark" simply kick ass, and make you start head banging – and of course you won’t find any "flowery" here. The title song (and the first song I've ever heard of Tad Morose) might be the catchiest song on the album with its thrashy riffing and Urban Breed's amazing vocal performance.

He's a fantastic singer; you will realise that very soon. The other songs are also good and grow with every listen. To pick out some favourites: "Riding The Beast" because it's simply a good song, "I Know Your Name" because it’s a fast headbanger and almost as good as the title song and "Don’t Pray For Me" because of its vicious riff. "Reason Of The Ghost" is by far the darkest song on the whole album and can almost be classified as doom metal. Tad Morose know how to write good songs, they have proven it with every album they put out, and this one is no exception. Check this out if you like power metal or traditional heavy metal. It's definitely a band that deserves much more attention.

Tad Morose are clawing and tearing their way into the front row of the power metal cohorts. This album picks up right where "Undead" left off: with one rocking piece after another. Urban Breed is truly about to earn a spot among the vocal elite of metal, his voice sounds like a cross between x-Savatage's Stevens, x-CG's Midnight, and x-Malmsteen's Vescera. The music is the same dark power metal as on "Undead," but it's faster: two songs, title track and "Another Way," are straight ahead speed metal masterpieces. Solid musicianship, good production from the guys themselves (although the drums could have been produced a notch better), excellent choruses. Speaking of choruses, one of the most dominant vocalists of the 90s, Charles Rytkonen of (Morgana) Lefay appears on two tracks: title track and "Reason For The Ghost," and he makes me miss Lefay like nothing else. What makes this album great are the magnificent melodies on virtually every song. "Sword of Retribution," "Ethereal Soul," "I Know Your Name," "New Clear Skies," "Riding The Beast," and "Reason For The Ghost" are all excellent songs, with lethal hooks. I must specifically mention mid-tempo "Ethereal Soul" and "In The Shadows," the catchiness here is simply unbelievable. Tad Morose (and Urban Breed specifically) has mastered the art of writing terrific choruses with absolutely killer melodies. Album's highest point is "Another Way," a great, fast, anti-Nazi anthem (at least that's how I read it). This is how a speed metal song should be played: fast and catchy verse, fast and catchy pre-chorus, fast and catchy chorus. The material is strong for the entire duration of the album, this is metal of highest quality. Oh, I must also mention that several songs feature top-notch guitar solos. In a word, this is perfect dark power metal. One question I have is: why does the track "New Clear Skies," chosen by Century Media for promotion on compilations, is the ONLY song in the booklet without the lyrics? Bad marketing, guys! Now, after two years of having this album, I have no choice but assign it the highest rating. The staying power and the tremendous songwriting skills earned it this honor. Every song is memorable, and it just doesn't get any better than this.

With this being my first review, I decided to give in depth insight into each song to better explain my viewpoint of this album. Tad Morose’s sound is a potent mixture of early Metal Church combined with elements of Morgana Lefay. Excellent cover artwork for this album is just one of the reasons I purchased this cd. Onto the Music:

Sword of Retribution starts off with a brief intro before exploding into a crushingly heavy riff that carries on throughout the song. Urban Breed provides fine vocals reminiscent of Mike Howe of Metal Church. The hook his voice exudes while singing the main verse of this song is infectious. I was instantly enamoured the first time I experienced this track. This song is a perfect mixture of heavy melody and delightful vocals.
Matters of the Dark features both Urban Breed and Charles Rytkonen (of Lefay, formerly of Morgana Lefay) dueling it out on vocals during this musical assault. Quite a dynamic pairing (especially because each respective singer comes from a power metal band that plays vicious music with melody). There are plenty of good guitar solos in this one. One thing that stands out is the main riff; it is very similar to the Morgana Lefay song “Dying Evolution.”
Ethereal Soul starts off with a brief light guitar before breaking into a darker passage. Excellent bass work accentuated by thundering drums breathe life into this song. Once again the vocal hook is captivating on certain verses. Although this song is a bit slower, it is still delivered with power and soulful vocals. Backing vocals are quite ominous here, as is the overall tone of the song. This could almost be labeled doom with the ponderous music (the vocal performance is what keeps it from being so).
I Know Your Name begins with a vicious guitar assault right in the opening and it doesn’t let up from there. Few power metal bands are capable of producing such a precise blend of power and melody. Doubled up vocals here is the high point of the song along with the stellar guitar playing. Great guitar solo about 2:45 into the song which draws the listener in. This song concludes with heavy guitars leading the way into the next song.
In the Shadows has an Egyptian feel to it as the main riff is played. Once again very heavy with plenty of melody. Tad Morose manage to play dark passages without sounding overly gloomy. Excellent chorus chanting with Urban Breed holding quavering notes above. Gamma Ray and Helloween were famous for using the gang-like chanting choruses during earlier albums and it seems as though Tad Morose borrow their idea and take it up a step by using convincingly driving vocal tones (not the typical happy chant-a-long choruses employed by several German bands playing the Euro power metal style).
Mid-paced guitars begin our next song, Another Way. This track is typical power metal while focusing a bit more on speed. Decent guitar playing is brought to the forefront more so than the vocals here.
New Clear Skies is up next. Urban Breed combines an explosive mixture of Mike Howe and Bruce Dickinson on this track. Typical solid guitar and drum work is on display here. The leads are almost sorrowful but still have enough drive to keep the song interesting. An incredible mixture of rich guitars and powerful vocals combine to create an exciting visual both of the sun rising on the horizon and of dragons flying throughout the sky.
Riding the Beast slows it down just a bit but the focus is still on heavy guitar work and more beautiful guitar leads. This becomes apparent at about 3:20 into the song as a brilliant guitar lead carries the song to its closing.
Reason of the Ghost starts off with bludgeoning guitars and an overall eerie feel, which adds great effect. This so far is the slowest song on the album (and possibly the heaviest guitar work on display can be found here also). Lower, almost menacing background vocals are enchanting while interwoven into the song. Urban Breed’s voice sounds slightly more aggressive on this track if you listen closely. The lyrics are well written and executed to perfection. I believe I also heard Charles Rytkonen singing in the background near the end of the song, which adds more charisma.
The Devil’s Finger contains more aggressive vocals and is more of a mid paced number. More progressive type leads near the end of the song are once again complimented by the superior vocals.
The final song Don’t Pray For Me opens up with the requisite heavy riffing synonymous with great power metal. Another solid song but nothing spectacular.

The highlights of the album are probably the first six or seven songs, as it tends to drag a bit in the end. The songs aren’t necessarily bad, just a bit drawn out with a slower pace. Urban Breed’s vocals seem to become more aggressive and menacing towards the end and the music changes slightly with a nod toward doom metal. However, this is a fine album and Tad Morose are one of my new favorite bands.

After listening to this album one has to wonder, "Does Tad Morose want to become the next Metal Church?". I mean it's all here, solid guitar work with awesome vocals its all just slightly updated with a few new influences.

This album also has one of the things that MANY "true" metal cd's lack...strong vocals WITH strong melodies. Many bands usually just have one or the other (strong melodies without the vocalist to pull them off or uninteresting melodies with a great vocalist) but Tad Morose has both and they certainly take advantage of it on this disc as most of the songs here are midpaced giving the vocals lots of room to breathe.

The first 6 songs ("Sword of Retribution", "Matters of the Dark", "Ethereal Soul", "I Know Your Name", "In the Shadows", and "Another Way") alternate between midpaced and faster/upbeat numbers. This keeps a nice sense of variety and keeps everything from turning into one big midpaced song. The song "Matters of the Dark" is probably the strongest song on the album and it's the one I always come back to. This song features Charles Rytkonen (Lefay) guesting to share lead vocals with vocalist Urban Breed.

After the first six songs the album moves into midpaced mode and continues for the rest of the album, this here is my only complaint...very little variety in the last half of the disc, if the vocals weren't so great the last half would be quite the arduous task indeed.

Overall the highlights would have to be the first seven songs with the rest being strong but not quite as good as the rest but I can say that if you have a hankering for some Metal Church styled metal come and listen to Tad Morose cause you won't be disappointed.