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Darkspace > Dark Space II > Reviews
Darkspace - Dark Space II

What if black metal...but in space? - 55%

we hope you die, July 9th, 2019

A cart-before-the-horse approach to black metal can be found in the likes of Switzerland’s Darkspace, and their ground-breaking ‘what if black metal…but in space?’ definitely-not-a-gimmick. But seriously, if you’re gonna base a musical project on lo-fi ambient black metal ‘inspired’ by the emptiness of space, then Darkspace pretty much aced it. Their second offering, 2005’s ‘Darkspace II’ (no kidding?) pretty much aces the formula for cosmic extreme metal. But sadly the operative word here is formula. Because this is not music in the sense of art that gets created out of necessity, but art that begins with a very specific destination in mind, and as a result is born of clinical, calculated decisions.

The music itself is made up almost exclusively of tremolo strummed guitars with distortion up to eleven and bass told to go sit in the corner. This is accompanied by almost constant choral phrasing on the keyboards, and of course, muffled blast beats. However, Darkspace is ultimately the brainchild of Wroth, the sole creative mind behind Paysage d’Hiver, so we know there is some musical talent behind this project, and this is allowed to shine forth on this work.

This LP is made up only three lengthy tracks, that get away with their length through some clever use of chord progressions. They will let a riff or passage continue just past the point of boredom, before transitioning into a key change or layering well placed arpeggio’d guitar leads over the top. This is rendered all the more pleasing precisely because it took so long to get there. Scant use of dark ambient interludes aids the impact of the constant wash of noise that makes up the rest of the album. This, and some other clever compositional techniques and near perfect production for this brand of intense space black metal just about carry this album beyond its novelty into something genuinely musically interesting.

I cannot help but also hold Darkspace up as one among many examples of where black metal went wrong at this time. They are good musicians, intuitively good writers who know how to direct their craft. But any one of Darkspace’s LPs feels more like a product than labour of love, a flavour and a brand, not a work of the heart. It's well made, but don’t take that as a glowing recommendation.

Originally published at Hate Meditations

Contemplating The Cosmic Blackness (Part II) - 89%

hells_unicorn, September 10th, 2011

2 years are a mere microsecond in the grand emptiness of space, but such a period of time was what it took for the human interpreters of its phenomena to craft another musical telling for mortal ears. The means of deciphering the nature of universe, the universal language of mathematics and its subsumed numerologies, has yielded a somewhat different take on the endless sonic ether that is Darkspace. Where in the previous manifestation the numerological sequence suggested a 7 points course, which is essential when plotting a course from one otherwise indistinguishable point in space to the next, this one concerns itself with a 3-fold realization, most likely a general awareness of the 3-dimensional nature of all space, be it a living world, a shimmering nebula, or the dead darkness that surrounds everything.

The vivid descriptions, though perhaps a bit pretentious, are a clear illustration of the visuals run through the mind when hearing the otherworldly atmosphere and ambience of this band. But it should be recognized that while this offering is very consistent with the dense, hazy, fuzzy, keyboard drenched tableau of the first album, the presentation takes a very noticeable shift. A much heavier focus has been placed on the ambient, noise-saturated aspects of the sound here, whereas “Darkspace I” used such devises to play support to what was a very slow progressing, yet closer to a song-oriented approach to dividing up the album’s various dispensations. Consequently, even when the blast beats, shimmering guitar riffs and distant screams fill the arrangement in their usual, perpetually frenetic fashion, the production quality has a slight, yet noticeably lower fidelity character to it.

This tertiary tale of journeys through the bounds of empty spaces in the universe seems to circle around 2 very distinct stories, which are quoted in the lyrics in the jacket. Each other is referenced in the middle track, which is about 10 minutes of persistent noise and ambient tones with what sounds like distant dialogues and chatter. The first seems to point to the opening composition, referring to an interplanetary conflict, and the music largely follows a semi-industrial feel with slow moving themes and noise driven sound masses. The closing song, referencing a quote regarding a spherical phenomenon affecting anyone approaching it in bizarre ways, is a bit closer to the warp speed, cosmic chaos of the previous album, but sits on a good amount of slower, atmospheric interludes throughout its 20 minute duration.

While stylistically this is well within the bounds of predictable evolution for the same band that put out the massive debut that preceded it, this comes off more like an overlong EP than an actual full length album, in no small measure because the longer durations and the generally hypnotic tendencies of the music make time seem to speed up while listening. And though nothing this band has put out tends to lend itself to frequent listens, “Part 2” particularly requires a particularly occasional dosage schedule for any individual not addicted to the genre hybrid going on within this 54 minute esoteric voyage. In terms of its overall sound, it is astounding, yet when considering the practical nature of music, this is far less accessible that the rest of this band’s work (and that is really saying something) and will probably come off as weaker. Nevertheless, this band’s version of an inferior effort is well beyond what a good number of bands have come up with when at their best.

Cold and Distant Atmosphere - 88%

PutridWind, July 6th, 2008

Darkspace are one of the bands that are active in the black metal scene and have a pretty strong following among most fans, with few not agreeing with the overwhelmingly positive reviews and critiques that this band has gotten for their first two albums. That being said they are also not necessarily a very traditional black metal band, nor are they easy to listen to and understand.

I have had both CDs almost two years, but never felt quite as drawn to them as most people who also liked bands like Paysage d'Hiver (the man behind PdH is also in Darkspace). Recently however, I have given my whole attention to these two cds, and both have left a unique impression on me. The music is in essence a mix of two genres, black metal and dark ambient. The blend makes it hard to define this band as purely black metal since only half this album actually has guitars and drums on it. The three songs are also extremely long and should be viewed as one whole piece.

This brings me to say that the music reminds me of jazz in a way. The compositions are structured in a way that makes me think that this cd relies heavily on improvised ideas since riffs almost never recur and there is almost no structure, definitely nothing reminiscent of verses and choruses. It seems that, like jazz, there is a set amount of bars over which one theme is explored, and then the form changes and a new idea is produced and developed. This idea is encouraged by the fact that the drums were programmed on this cd, and so therefore there must have been a set structure over which the musicians recorded.

As for the rest of the cd, it is obviously not like jazz at all. It isn't even like most black metal relying less on guitars than it does on keyboards and the blend of sound created by the various instruments. The songs have two basic types of feels. They have sections that are fast tremolo picked passages of guitar, but the notes are not distinguishable. The guitars are solely there to create a wall of sound, against which the keyboards are juxtaposed. The keyboards play long eerie (and exclusively minor) chords that indicate little awareness of being in any key. The other type of feel is a slow mid tempo feel that is introduced at the beginning of Dark 2.8. The guitars play long sustained chords over the drums (pretty low in the mix as they serve only as time) and the synth plays less an accompaniment than an opposing set of chords meant to create a very uneasy dissonant feel.

The music fits the theme of dark space well, the music is void of any themes of light or hope, not one second of the music even implies a major tonality. Instead the music creates the image of a dark void, of emptiness which one is lulled into through the monotonous nature of the music. Monotony usually works against black metal bands (who try to use it but repeat average riffs to boredom), but here it works for the band, who aren't concerned with repeating passages, but rather with creating a consistent drone, or an intense attack of sound. The song titles also aptly have no name, but rather seem simply like file names or something indexed by a program giving a bit of the futuristic flair that is also implied by samples in the music. The vocals are done by all three members, but are relatively low in the mix, and are indiscernible. I actually wonder the vocals even have lyrics, or whether the vocals are rather adding another layer of sound to the music giving it another dimension.

Recommended for fans of Vinterriket, Paysage d'Hiver, Nordlicht, and even more drone/doom like music such as Nadja, which also builds energy and themes and has little to do with actually melody/harmony or verse chorus structures. (The album would be a 95+ if the middle song wasn't a little too long)

The hostile future sends us this grotesque torrent - 85%

beletty, July 2nd, 2008

‘Dark Space II’ exists as an organic entity where melody is made by thick bass notes – sanguine spasms that pulsate under a thin, gossamer web of guitar, reminiscent to the tone of horror flicks ambient. The music represents an amorphous mass, hard to break down in pieces due to the compact style with which the instruments are played. The composition brings to mind the sobriety and icy tension of doom metal, tension that discharges into the listener through vast detonations of static that don’t disturb the flow of already overburdened sound.

The vocals don’t seem to be anchored in the rhythm, and I can’t tell precisely if there are more vocalists or if some of those voices are ambient used to enlarge even further the variety of elements that spawn randomly, flicker and die out in the infinite universe of sound. Darkspace suggest the coldness and distancing between people brought by the space age keen to eat mankind, where immense masses of men turned to labourers are led by intangible cybernetic authorities like that ethereal feminine voice sample.

There is nihilism to Darkspace, but of a more palpable and realistic nature. They create brooding images of metropolic space stations eaten by the infinity of cosmos to overwhelm the listener and bring a more plausible and grahical point to our futile condition.

Outstanding work of black metal / ambient art - 97%

NausikaDalazBlindaz, October 3rd, 2007

This is a really outstanding work of mostly instrumental black metal / ambient art from the Swiss guitar trio Darkspace. The album is part of an on-going series with "III" due to be released either late in 2007 or some time in 2008. Superficially the music seems to be mostly improvised and near-spontaneous with no apparent structure but a major work like this and the other related recordings would at least have a basic plan and theme with enough flexibility to allow for chance occurrences and the odd change of mind.

Although the CD is nearly an hour long, the music divides into just three movements. Movement 1 brings on blasts of shimmering black metal guitar noise which sometimes includes passages of guitar melodies or clean-toned riffing. Pure keyboard tones of the kind used by Paysage d'Hiver whose sole member is part of the Darkspace trio can be heard here. The music comes in constant storm cloud bursts and rains down severe toxic acid precipitation behind which howls of condemned souls and other creatures and demons having conversations can be heard. The atmosphere of the record can feel quite corrosive as though all that guitar-generated rain is making the air thick with needle-sharp teardrop particles. By and large the music is repetitive and aggressive, the aim being to build up a huge ambient sonic tower from which the musicians, dragging us along, can launch into a deep convoluted wormhole after about the 20th minute, a wormhole that opens up into a whole new universe.

And so we arrive at the second movement which does away with the BM altogether and immerses us in a strange and harsh dystopian world where constant explosions, alien machine rhythms, spoken voice recordings and various other found sounds are held together with long piercing steel tone wires from which surveillance gadgets may be hanging, swivelling about to capture every detail of every movement and gesture above and below them. A chilling moment comes when a woman's voice speaks in crisp clinical tones that could cut crystal - bomb explosions and chugging rhythms to some extent obscure what she is saying but it's easy to imagine she's instructing a group of shell-shocked prisoners and refugees on where to board the transport ships that will take them to the nearest medical experimentation centre. Not long after we end up passing through yet another tunnel of deep black echoing infinity to another unknown realm.

Movement 3 recapitulates the first movement in style but the music becomes much faster and more furious, the lead guitar lines are more shrill and deranged and the demons are now going completely ape-shit. There is more drama in the synth-playing, the clean tones rising in washes in contrast to the harsh guitar blizzard. Now we seem to be racing headlong at nearly the speed of light into the most highly concentrated point in the universe where even black holes disappear. Demons scream as the music becomes ever more frantic and deranged. All of a sudden there's a mighty clap and everything disappears leaving behind vast empty space and ghostly wisps of what might have once existed.

The music is structured so as to be heard in one sitting: the first track builds up into the second and the third piece of music leads away from the second track and attempts to reconstruct the first track (which may represent a kind of utopia) but in a way that suggests events of the second track have left some horrifying and baleful influences and scars. The whole thing is very clearly a unity of three distinct yet related pieces of music. The album isn't actually openly sci-fi in theme, I just happen to interpret the music in that way because it suits me and listeners may well come to different conclusions based on the experiences they bring when they listen to the music. This album is a marvellous creature built of soundscapes pulling in a variety of elements from different music genres: you'll find elements of black metal, industrial, dark ambient, musique concrete and what could possibly be installation sound art - this is music that has to be heard in very large spaces, as in an art gallery or large cathedral, to get the full effect. I imagine that if you were to hear this entire recording very loudly in a very large space you would get the full benefit of the music and that might be something Darkspace should consider doing - playing this LIVE!