Dark Affliction is about death.
Created by Greek musician Panagiotis Christias (vocals/guitar/bass/keyboards), the project unveiled its first EP in 2021, the year of its creation. In 2024, it released its debut album Five Stages of Grief on Theogonia Records, accompanied by Eleni Nota (drums, Ankor, ex-Nervosa), Nikos Mavridis (violin, ex-Rome, Carach Angren), Anastasia Kiritsi (vocals, Celéne) and Sakis Bastas (piano).
The introduction gently envelops us in a veil of softness, but the melody sometimes becomes a little more agitated before fading away to make way for Denial and its aggressive melancholy-tinged sounds. This languor can be found again in the clear parts, which help to temporize the waves of raw darkness that leave more and more of a mark on the rhythm, leading us to Hate and its steamy DSBM-oriented tones that meet a much more present drumming. Whispers accompany our journey to the soothing break that rubs off on the final section before meeting fury on Bargaining, where screams reinforce the thick riffs interspersed with ominous moments of calm. This track is undoubtedly the most virulent on the album, drawing on heart-rending roots to express itself before plunging us into a doom-tinged torpor with Depression, the following composition, which is obviously much more ethereal. A gentle female voice accompanies our slow march to the final darkness and then on to Acceptance, where we feel that the driving rhythmic pattern adopts both energetic Old School touches and brighter harmonics, at least in the first part of the track, since after a few words a piano fills us with wonder before finally fading out.
Five Stages of Grief develops five relatively different atmospheres united by the roots of Black Metal. This debut album allows Dark Affliction to show us what they’re capable of, while remaining rooted in hazy music.
75/100