June 2023 - Feature Release - The Guardians Edition

So just like that we find that a new month is upon us which of course means that we’ll be nominating a brand new monthly feature release for each clan. This essentially means that we’re asking you to rate, review & discuss our chosen features for no other reason than because we enjoy the process & banter. We’re really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on our chosen releases so don’t be shy.

This month's feature was nominated by me, the 2022 full length from American band Darkmoon Blade, a heavy metal band with a very obvious Celtic Frost influence and a name taken from Dark Souls, which does affect search results, just so you know.

https://metal.academy/releases/44772

Here's my review.

Darkmoon Blade is a band trying to really imitate that first wave of black metal spirit, with mixed success. There's all the stuff you'd expect from that description, crappy production, not really growling but not clean vocals. This influence includes Mercyful Fate, a band with which doesn't quite fit in with those other first wave BM bands. Indeed, at moments they try to channel that Mercyful Fate spirit, it doesn't work, which unfortunately culminates in a Fate-eqsue romantic ballad.
I'm not really sure the band captures the right production for what they're going for. There's less an outright raw production in the black metal sense and more a raw production in a modern demo kind of sense. There are parts where I expected a song to build up more than it did, or vocal lines not quite meshing with the rest of the music. Something that you would expect to be fixed on a commercial album as opposed to a demo, yet aren't.
Which isn't to say it's a bad album. When the album works, it really works. The guitarist, when he isn't being lazy, has a really nice style. It's got the obvious black metal trappings, but it feels all over the place in terms of influences. In short, succeeding at their intentions, but with a more wistful, mysterious style characteristic of later bands. This is no clearer than in the solos, not some technical masterwork, but feels beautiful and melodic within the confines of the band's style.
I have mixed feelings on the vocals, he's trying to go somewhere between a not quite growling vocalist and a Warrior-style, but doesn't quite commit to either. It never really felt like he was all that special, but I didn't dislike it. His attempts at clean vocals badly imitate King Diamond, in that ballad I immensely dislike. It just reminds me how King Diamond gets away with all the shit he does because he just has that good a range, and this guy just doesn't.
I look forward to seeing what these guys do in the future. Whenever they aren't just rerecording the same album again. As I wrote this they released a new version of this album. They're new versions of these songs, they sound different, but I'm not really sure I'd say they sound worse or better.

Darkmoon Blade are a heavy metal three-piece from South Carolina, all three members are also in the black metal outfit, Molag and a couple of them are in melodic death/black crew Somat, all of which have released albums in the last year or so, so they have been busy bees indeed. DB seem to be striving to reproduce the lightning-in-a-bottle of early Venom, but almost seem to be trying too hard. Whereas Venom produced their classic material seemingly effortlessly and so consequently authentically, Darkmoon Blade sound forced, never more than in the vocal department where singer Velda seems so intent on reproducing Cronos' rasping delivery that he sounds uncomfortable and staid, never coming anywhere near the Geordies' natural-sounding likeability but rather producing more of a tight-throated croak.

It isn't all bad news, some of the riffing and lead work is quite fun and although the band are really only producing very basic heavy metal, when they hit their stride they provide some passable headbanging material. Of course it has to be brought up, but the more ambitious My Darling in the Fire is really bad. The vocals are at their nadir on this track and the songwriting seems to be trying to take a leaf out of King Diamond's mini-opera-like style, but is so all over the place that it is actually cringeworthy.

I really don't like doing down metal albums but this isn't anything I could, in all honesty, say I would ever return to as the bad significantly outweighs the good and it is hard to forgive such a poor vocal performance.

2.5/5

Darkmoon Blade are creating a nostalgic style of heavy metal that leans close to the first wave of black metal circa the early 1980s. I always enjoy a band like this and Negative Plane who aren’t afraid to go back and not simply copy the giants of the early 1990s and black metal’s golden years.

There are riffs here closer to Motorhead, Judas Priest and Diamond Head, but for vocals, only Lemmy of Motorhead might have a close comparison. Velda’s timbre is almost comedically rough, like they perpetually have a huge clump of phlegm in the back of their throat. I found it to be distracting, especially since the instrumentals are so clean and proper; something you don’t typically expect out of a quasi-black metal album such as this.

Darkmoon Blade does get some points for their compositions, but I do share some trepidation when I see “Unborn Again” and “My Darling In The Fire” as being longer tracks with songwriting techniques taken from progressive music. Overall, it’s a decent album with enough techniques keeping it fresh, but those vocals don’t do it for me, and either the band needs to tighten up their progressive songwriting, or altogether simplify, to be more of my cup of tea.

3/5

I want to say that I gave this one a fair shake but in all honesty I didn't get too far. 

Darkmoon Blade are just not my thing as I don't really have any nostalgia for this kind of thing and the way that the vocal melodies fit in with the rest of what the band was trying to do made my skin crawl. I guess I can say that the instrumental portion of Darkmoon Rising does okay for what it is, but there wasn't a single riff that really caught my ear the entire time. Couple that with some rough songwriting in how they incorporate the riffs with the vocals and this one was an absolute disaster for me, sadly. I'm sure there are albums in this style that I'd enjoy, like that one Nite album from last year Voices of the Kronian Moon, but that's more aligned with Black Metal whereas this is definitely trying to be Heavy Metal.

1.5/5