DARKENHÖLD
Castellum
(Those Opposed Records)
42:31min

What comes to mind if you think of Nice and the Côte d’Azur? Mediterranean flair, easy living the French way and sunshine, of course. Well, don’t buy the cliché until you’ve heard DARKENHÖLD! The three piece is exactly from that area, and they sound quite opposite to the region they are from. Instead of celebrating the sun and a life on the beach, DARKENHÖLD tell us stories about castles and their mysteries and medieval fantasy. But they don’t just tell stories – they picture their tales with music. “Atmospheric and epic medieval Black Metal” – that’s how they describe their music, and so they give us a fairly good characterization of what to expect. “Castellum” is the third album by DARKENHÖLD, that’s a good omen that we don’t have to deal with chaotic newbies here, but with experienced musicians and composers. Thus they created homogenous songs in between Black Metal fury with not too few melodies and epic breaks with keyboards and some acoustic guitars for this album. Sounds interesting on the first glance, yet the band has shot their bolt pretty soon. The long epic opener ‘Strongholds Eternal Rivalry’ shows not only the best this album has to offer, but it’s quite a good summary of it as well. In the long run, DARKENHÖLD do not add any new flavour or special magic to the songs, except for some moments in ‘Le Souffle Des Vieilles Pierres’. Instead, a lot of songs pass me by without leaving a deeper impact, without giving me the feeling to listen to them again. And that’s why I can’t really put my thumbs up for “Castellum”. A 7” with the two aforementioned songs would have got my admiration… For more information check out www.facebook.com/darkenhold or the label www.thoseopposedrecords.com

Thomas Meyer

Thomas Meyer

Related reviews / interviews:
DARKENHÖLD - Arcanes & Sortilèges (Randolph Whateley)
DARKENHÖLD - Atra Musica (Thomas Meyer)
DARKENHÖLD - Memoria Sylvarum (Mirco Szymyslik)

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