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‘Darzamat’ is the guardian of all
gardens and woods, so tells us an ancient Slavic tradition. This
Polish band was founded in 1995 by Rafal ‘Flauros’ Goral and Szymon
Struzek, both Mastiphal musicians at that time. They have released
2 albums until now : In the flames of black art (1997) and In the
opium of black veil (1999). Both are re-released in 2002 by Metal
mind productions and show us a group which isn’t afraid of any
experimental tendencies and they preferred to be labelled as a
‘black art group’. Orchestral elements decorate the self-willed
compositions at that time.
Nowadays Avantgarde Music takes care
of the releases and I can assure that this label has an excellent
name to describe Darzamat’s music a bit. It’s been a long time
waiting for some new music of Darzamat. This is due to the fact
that they have built their own studio in Katowice, the Post Street
studio, where they worked on this album for five months. A total
new sound was created in a relax environment. I must admit that it
took some time to get used to ‘cause I only recognized Darzamat by
their need to experiment and create something special. In the
meantime the band wasn’t spared of some line up changes. Pawel
Chudzicki joined the band, being the third ex-Mastiphal musician in
line, they incorporated a new guitar player Krysztof Michalak and
after the recordings of ‘Oniriad’ female vocalist Katarzyna Banaszak
went to the States.
We’ve been warned : on this CD we can
find few compositions which refer to the old Darzamat style, it’s a
mix of rock, metal, gothic, ambient, folk and classic. The lyrics
are based on dreams and fantasy. The rough grained vocals of
‘Flauros’ are vanished in the haze and the contribution of guitars
is less, in favour of some spatial sound effects. ‘Into the abyss
of forgotten woods’ sounds very catchy and even reminds me of some
open-minded sixties melodies. The distorted vocals remind me of
Hawkwind at the time of ‘Hall of the mountain grill’ when I listen
to ‘The longest journey’. Spoken words float into female vocals and
solid guitar breaks. The song ends with repetitive chorus’s and a
bright guitar solo. Those Hawkwind influences will appear later on
again (Moon has imprisoned me in her shine). Furthermore we can
enjoy a whole bunch of different styles, but yet sounding very
homogeneous. The ambient influences reach the surface in the sultry
sung ‘Beauty’, dreaming of some sublime sensuality while musically
referring to Antimatter landscapes.
In ‘Time’ it seems we have an electro
wave band with dance influences at the house. Some flirting with
electronics is evident, also in ‘When dreams died’. ‘Elegy’ starts
with a very nice violin sound and piano and has a hip folk melody.
We move towards the finale of this creation with rolling thunder
drums and the characteristic female vocals keep haunting us. In the
beginning ‘Oniriad’ left me with mixed feelings but after getting in
a bit more, it starts growing and those are the best records : you
always discover something new the next time. |
