DARK SPACE - I

Dark Space - I is a demo release by Swiss black metal act Darkspace. The demo was released by the band themselves in May 2002. Dark Space - I is available for streaming on the band´s homepage. the demo is 25:05 minutes long and features two tracks.

The music on the demo is dark, cold and ambient black metal. Darkspace is quite an unconventional black metal act as their lyrics evolve around space themes. The vocals are raspy/ screaming and low in the mix. It has the effect that the vocals almost work as an extra instrument. The band consists of two guitarists and a bassist. All members provide vocals. The drums are programmed and work very well in the context of Darkspace cold sound. There are keyboards in the music too which adds to the often epic ambient atsmosphere. The lo-fi sound quality, which is pretty noisy, means that the drums are often completely drowned in the mix. But even with a sound quality like this, the charm of the music shines through.

The first track on the demo called Dark -1.-1 is a generally fast-paced track, and while the song is pretty repetitive and ambient in nature, there are several sections in the song that provides variation. The second track on the demo called Dark -1.0 is a bit more industrial tinged and even more ambient and repetitive than the first track. The cold and harsh atmosphere is greatly enjoyable though and all in all the demo provides enough variation and interesting ideas to never become tiresome even though there are a lot of repetition going on.

If the demo featured a slighty better sound quality I would have rated it just a bit higher than I do, because the music on this release is of high quality. The music conjure up images of endless dark space, alien solar systems and futuristic spacecrafts, and in that respect I think the band succeed very well in their mission. A 3 - 3.5 star rating is deserved. One of the more interesting black metal acts I´ve heard in a long time.

The first Darkspace demo - originally released in 2002 as a download, later rereleased in a rerecorded version in 2012 - is an apt manifesto for the band's distinctive style. Atmospheric black metal skirting the borderlands of ambient? Check. A chilly atmosphere that goes beyond the snowy landscapes of Paysage d'Hiver into the vacuum of deep space itself? Check. Ominous samples worked deep into the mix? Check. They'd further polish and refine their style over time, but it's clear that they already had the broad outline of their distinctive, innovative sound well-established straight out of the gate, yielding a compelling prelude to their more polished works.