Darkest Era - The Journey Through Damnation (Eyes Like Snow)
By Chris Barnes
February 8, 2009
When Celtic-influenced heavy music is mentioned, my brain is hardwired to automatically think of Red Sox pitcher Jon Papelbon doing an ecstatic jig to the Dropkick Murphy’s "I'm Shipping Up To Boston" when they won the AL championship in ’07. They still play that friggin’ song every time he comes on the field, can’t blame them really, it’s a great song. The next thought turns to the greatest Celtic-influenced Heavy Metal record of all time, Slough Feg’s
Down Among The Deadment, which is sung with a Celtic-flair by the decidedly Italian singer Mike Scalzi and his US-based band. The weird thing is that I never really think of Ireland. Just Boston and San Francisco. I probably just haven’t paid enough attention to my genetic motherland. Not everyone that’s Irish lives in Boston. Three quarters live in South Boston I think, but not the whole clan.
Germany's “Eyes Like Snow” imprint from the Northern Silence label ais among my favorites to watch. Torsten runs a diverse yet hellaciously talented roster there, with Yankee doom zealots
Apostle of Solitude and amazing trad metal upstarts
Dark Forest among others. Darkest Era is one of the latest additions to the label and their debut
The Journey Through Darkness is pretty damn amazing, right in the quality que with the aforementioned bands. High quality, sing-along-able, Celtic-kissed traditional heavy metal often played at furious speeds and beautifully, cleanly sung with the mighty tenor of Dwayne “Krum” Maguire… that’s right!!! Cleanly sung! How’s that for novel these days??. The band mentions Primordial and the “Viking Era” Bathory recordings as influences. I can definitely hear that – Darkest Era skip the popular bowel-poppin’ low end for a nice mid-range sound, the guitars and arranegements very Quorthon-ian in places, epic and speedy, capable of raised glasses of local ales but also incorporate an atmosphere that is as dark and grey as the Emerald Isle often is in the winter months. I’m a fan of how the Darkest Era incorporates Celtic rhythms and native instruments (
Another World Awaits is an excellent example). As I take a look at the bio here, the drummer is a female and also happens to be quite fetching. Considering the pace of some of these… actually
most of the percussion, she’s either superhuman or an octopus. There is another of the finer gender in the band I see, also very pretty and plays guitar. That would be Sarah Wieghell. Good on the band and cheers to them for breaking the gender barrier here, it’s great to hear more and more females get involved in heavy music, especially when they make mince meat out of their male peers.
From what I’ve been reading, the band has also gathered accolades for it’s live show, something you folks in Europe should enjoy if you get the opportunity. God knows we have nothing even close to Heavy Metal of this caliber natively grown here in Los Angeles. In summary,
The Journey Through Damnation is an outstanding collection of recordings if you’re even a casual fan of Old School traditional Heavy Metal and the fact that they borrow so heavily from their native land in musical arrangements, imagery and lyrics makes Darkest Era all the more interesting.
Purchase The Journey Through Damnation at the Hellride Music Superstore
Listen to an MP3 of Another World Awaits
Visit the Darkest Era website at www.myspace.com/darkestera
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