Darkspace is back to haunt us.
Ten years after their last production, and a handful of carefully selected concerts, the trio now comprising Wroth (guitar/vocals, Paysage d’Hiver), Zhaaral (guitar/vocals, Sun of the Blind) and Yhs (bass) sign with Season of Mist and release Dark Space -II, their fifth album.
I don’t know what you’re expecting from this new Darkspace album. I may have known the band for years, and seen them live twice (pre-covid, though), but I didn’t know what to expect either. The label had announced « a single forty-seven-minute track of pure Ambient Space Black Metal », and the band gave us much more than that, filling in their absence in the studio.
The track gets off to a rather strange start, with a recorded voice seemingly feeding its diary and a few crackles, which will eventually be disturbed by a hazy melody, then an Industrial beat and finally some real riffs that slowly intensify, almost overpowering the lyrics, which are barely discernible in the background. Faded howls join the cloud of darkness and its piercing lead guitar, which calls on the other instruments to intensify as the vocal parts multiply, then the sound subsides, allowing a few cybernetic noises to appear, followed by ominous keyboards. Anguish easily grows as the piano comes into play, complemented by background vocals, then growls and ethereal rhythms settle in again, effortlessly recreating that suffocating nightmare within which we slowly progress until a small moment of floating, followed by a wave as majestic as it is frightening, which gradually transforms into a simple, jerky, almost martial riff. Airy harmonics accompany us to a new section where the infernal voices blend together, reaching what seems to be the album’s climax, then the sound slows down again, marking the descent into a silence disturbed only by this mysterious vocal recording.
It’s impossible to be disappointed with Darkspace. Their mastery of the soundscape is such that the band manages on Dark Space -II to hold us spellbound for the entire duration of its single track, and take us on a journey into the icy cosmos with them. Once again, bravo.
95/100