Diving into Darkness

Darkseed has been one of my favourite bands since I listened to this album six years ago, unfortunately these German guys have never reached the top of the scene, despite of this it has been a deeply respected band by gothic metal fans. The lack of worldwide success of Darkseed can be explained because its sound is highly influenced by bands like Paradise lost or Crematory, they have never toured too much and mainly because they haven’t released an album which is so classic as “Draconian Times” or “Act Seven”. Nevertheless, Darkseed has never released a mediocre album and they have worked hard to release very solid works frequently, another good point of this band is that they have continually developed their sound, never repeating it and though their influences are clear they have created their distinctive sound, based in the well-balanced mixture of heavy tuned guitars, a solid rhythmic base, an excellent work with keys and electronics, and of course, the brilliant and unique voice of the leader of the band, Stefan Henrich, a guy who is capable of combinating excellent semi-growls, catchy clean vocals and depressive voices effortless. Moreover, Stefan has an admirable taste to write lyrics, which are not based in the typical gothic themes but also in social themes and personal struggles.

After three interesting albums, especially the amazing “Give me light”, Darkseed took a different approach in its career and released an album which introduced some electronic influences in the keys. In “Diving into Darkness” we can find an electronic infused atmosphere which is really haunting and dark, the keys embrace the songs and give to them a deeper ambiance, converting this album in a some kind of journey through an ethereal world. Definitely it is not an album which can be tagged as straightforward, it requires some tries from the listener to introduce him in its world of gloomy landscapes and despair, but when you understand the feeling of this work you can’t stop listening to it.

As I have remarked before this album is not perhaps as catchy as for example “Give me light” album was, but this assessment is absolutely incorrect when we talk about the first tree songs. The album stars with a highly appreciated gothic anthem called “Forever Darkness”, believe me this song is catchy as hell!, from the initial electronic key to the smashing chorus this song is destined to be a classic, there are no flaws here, every piece, every riff and melody is united to create a song which can be considered as one of the epitomes of the genre. “I Deny you” is another fantastic song, a little bit less heavy than the first one but it is also a very catchy song with a touching lyric, a tremendous chorus and great guitar melody, and completing this unbeatable trio we have “Counting moments”, a marvellous composition with an excellent key melody and an emotive solo, this song is by far the most dynamic of the album and perhaps my favourite though it is almost impossible to choose only one. After this excellent begining the album looses this straightforward touch and perhaps a little bit of level as some critics try to stand out, perhaps it is true that if the full album would have had songs in the vein of the first three it could have been an instant classic, but what the hell, as you repeatedly listen to songs as “Rain”, “Downward” or “Cold Under Water” you can’t refuse the fact that you finally rejoice each composition of this masterpiece, because every song is bleak and mournful, and in each composition you will find a great melody that you will never forget.

All in all, “Diving into Darkness” can be considered as an obscured gem of gothic metal which could have been an extremely successful album with more catchy songs but if you give an opportunity to this album it will finally grip you. A must have for every fan of Gothic metal and dark music in general.

Darkseed has experimented with different sounds, but “Diving into Darkness” marked a huge sound difference in comparison to earlier albums. Seems that all the acoustic guitars of “Give me light” were changed into dark-electro-atmospheric elements, that’s why this album could be considered as a good choice for electro-depressive fans. The change in the sound probably had something to do with the changes in the line up.

Anyway, “Diving into Darkness” still sticks to Goth metal with clean deep and depressive singing but all the electro-atmosphere makes it sound like a metal version of Depeche Mode.

Somehow, Melodic Death Metal fans have been attracted to the album because of the first song, “Forever Darkness”. But, be careful, this is the only song that sounds like that and it doesn’t even have enough melodeath elements. The song is the best of the album and it does have a vocal switch, between deep vocals (ala Sentenced), death metal singing and Depeche Mode vocals. It starts quite electro-atmospheric, then the distorted guitar riff enters with the death metal growls, the chorus is catchy and here is where the vocals switch between low toned singing and Depeche Mode vocals. Is an awesome song, but if you are expecting this album to be melodic death, you will get a huge disappointment. The other song where you can actually find death metal growls is “Cold under water”, quite a boring song, in my opinion.

In the other hand, a good song would be “Can’t find you”, at times it sounds more like electro-atmospheric doom metal similar to the band Crowhead. There’s nothing related to death metal here, just clean male depressed singing and plenty of sad but catchy lyrics. The guitar riffs aren’t complicated at all but the rhythm and distortion is still great.

“I deny you”, “Hopelessness”, “Counting Moments” and “Autumn” are not great songs but they are ok, they seem to follow the formula of catchy lyrics, non complicated guitar riffs and dark synths.

This is a good album, but unfortunately, it wasn’t as good as their early work, is the typical album that only has two extreme good songs and the rest aren’t that good. They have continued with this kind of sound to the next album as well, but fortunately it seems that they got to improve it for the “Ultimate Darkness” album.