Divine Darkness

Damnation. Hmmm. Let’s see: a largely unknown black metal formation from the frostbitten realms of Sweden whose members would later go on to join some much better known death and black metal outfits. Formed as early as 1989. Have only released a demo, two EPs and one full-length. Now, I’m not going to pretend to know anything about this band other than the sparse but useful information provided by our good friends here at Encyclopaedia Metallum. In fact, I don’t even properly recall the mysterious circumstances that caused this demo to fall into my hands, but I do know that this somewhat obscure release far exceeded what few—if any—expectations I might have had when I first cranked this on my stereo.

“Divine Darkness” is one of those rare releases that are so singularly raw and uncompromising in their approach that even the most basic and visceral passages are endowed with a certain majestic splendor, an ephemeral sense of melody that cannot be entirely accounted for yet somehow manages to permeate this demo almost from start to finish—in that respect, I think “Divine Darkness” is not entirely unlike such black metal milestones as Darkthrone’s “Transilvanian Hunger” or Mayhem’s “De Mysteriis Dom. Sathanas.” Another defining trait of “Divine Darkness” is that it retains much of the minimalistic, almost primitive approach as well as the blackened thrash tinge of such first wave of black metal bands as Venom, Bathory and early Sodom (in their “In the Sign of Evil/Obsessed by Cruelty” phase). While there are some overtly melodic passages as well, these are mixed in so seamlessly with the onslaught of relentlessly fast and brutal stretches that the music on this demo ends up sounding more primitive and unsophisticated than it actually is.

In terms of instrumental performance, let’s just say these guys know what they’re doing and succeed at getting their message across. However, special mention has to go to the vocalist, whose haunting, emphatic voice is quite unique and emanates a sense of urgency that you won’t hear all that often from other black metal frontmen. Just listen carefully to the final one and a half minutes of “The Dark Divine” and you’ll know exactly what I mean. The only comparable vocal delivery I can think of would probably be Attila Csihar’s on Mayhem’s aforementioned “De Mysteriis Dom. Sathanas.” Very impressive indeed.

At the same time, it’s somewhat hard to determine whether the vocals are more of the black metal, death metal or thrash metal variety; they’re probably a little bit of all three, which should be considered beneficial since it prevents them from becoming generic and provides for quite a lot of variation. Such stylistic reflections aside, it’s safe to say the guy comes across like some kind of mentally deranged lunatic—a case in question would again be the second track “The Dark Divine,” where he incorporates some “clean” shouts that are belted out with such eerie conviction that he truly sounds like a man possessed. Add to this the fact that his voice appears like it’s about to crack at any second and you really have to wonder what asylum that dude escaped from.

As far as production values are concerned, the sound of this demo may be very raw and more than a little muffled, yet it gets the job done and may even be perfect for this kind of music. We can safely assume that “Divine Darkness” would have lost a good deal of its primal charm had Damnation opted for a high-end, crystal clear production job (which they likely were too cash-strapped to afford anyway), but on the other hand, a little more definition here or there probably wouldn’t have hurt either.

The four songs on this demo all maintain a consistently high level of quality throughout, although the second and quasi-title track stands out a little from the rest with its almost soothing melodic lead guitar passages that are so nicely incorporated into the otherwise venomous concoction of lightning-fast blast beats, pounding double bass drums, simple tremolo-picked riffs and creepy vocals rife with infernal blasphemous poetry. The only song that’s a little different from the rest in so far as it rumbles along in a noticeably slower pace and sounds even more atavistic is “The Return of Darkness and Evil,” which concludes this demo and is a cover version of, fittingly enough, the eponymous Bathory track from the seminal “The Return” album.

In conclusion, I would like to recommend this demo not only to black metal completists, but to anyone whose black metal tastes go beyond the slightly more mainstream-friendly symphonic style of the likes of Dimmu Borgir and Cradle of Filth. That is, of course, if you can somehow manage to get hold of this long forgotten gem …