SWANLIKE

German band DARK SUN's first album is offering quite nice Dark Metal with a slight progressive edge, much in the vein of KATATONIA or IN THE WOODS (before their experimental phase) or OPETH with both growling and clean vocs. The songs are very melodic and nice to listen with some good acoustic parts now and then as well. Nothing that much progressive I'd say, so any "pure" Proghead who does not like Doom or Black Metal as well (like I do) will probably not feel "at home" with this kind of music. But I think as well not with their second one which is a bit more progressive than this one with more massive usage of keyboard textures. Anyway a good album for what it is. I'd give a half star extra if it'd be possible!

Dark Suns play experimental and doomy death metal on this their debut Swanlike. They are pretty much an Opeth clone and not much more. To some this might sound great, but I find it a bit too unoriginal.

The level of the musicians are great though and the compositions flow nicely. The music changes between epic doomy death metal parts and parts with clean vocals. Acoustic guitar is used often. Does this sound familiar ? I think they lack the last power though to become anything like their great influence Opeth.

The sound quality is good but I think the growls are too processed for my taste. The clean vocals are very nice to my ears even though they are not something special.

All in all it´s a very average experimental death metal album. I have heard it all before, many times worse and some times better. 3 small stars for this very average album. Not bad but not too good either. I hope their next album is a bit more innovative and doesn´t sound so much like Opeth.

I generally don't like talking about one band by direct comparison to another, but Dark Suns debut album Swan Like is the closest sounding album to Opeth, circa Still Life, that I have ever heard. It uses the light and dark musical shading that Opeth does so effectively that its going to be hard to escape the comparison.

The biggest difference is that Dark Suns doesn't make quite as much use of acoustic guitar preferring to rely on a much cleaner, smoother guitar sound to juxtapose with the heavy distortion of the metal parts. However, this isn't a bad thing at all as Dark Suns pull off the style very well and add a flavour all of their own by generally playing in a slow, almost doom metal style. The big surprise on here actually comes from the closing instrumental, In Silent Harmony II, that is actually highly reminiscent of maudlin of the Well's shorter instrument parts like Interlude 1 through 4, only using electric rather than acoustic guitar. It makes for a very interesting end to the album but I'm not too sure whether it fits in well with the rest of it. Technically, all the members of the band are quite strong, though they don't to flaunt it, with the drummer Niko Knappe being the stand out, though his vocals aren't exactly great. The bonus track, Suffering, makes for a nice addition, though being recorded 5 years before this album it has a much more raw feeling to it. Highly recommended to fans of Opeth, especially if My Arms, Your Hearse and Still Life are two of your favourites from them.