Dark Mass "Medium" CD
[Pzdts]
These guys hail from the Ukraine and call their style "hyper metal", which to me basically comes off as an instrumental form of metal that combines quirky math metal riffs and rhythms with progressive death metal and 80's metal (the latter of which comes into play with the blazing melodic solos). Four band members appear in the photo, but I'll be damned if it doesn't sound like they use a drum machine on this thing... so... it's either a machine or the worst sounding drum triggers I've ever encountered, because the drums sound awful and highlight an already problematic recording (my guess is that it is a machine as the drum beats are painfully simple compared to everything else). It just sounds raw and unnatural, and I know this is just a demo, and a competent one at that, but these songs deserve a better sound. If the drums had any ounce of natural tone the entire thing would sound better, but the quiet bass presence and somewhat rigid guitars can also be a setback. The writing, though, is pretty damn cool. Sometimes the songs get too simplistic or wind around for a little long without enough variation, but there are some killer layered guitar parts in "Neon Revelations" that make great use of harmony and a blend of contemporary melodic Swedish styles with lightly technical death/thrash metal (including some awesome tapping parts). "Guyee Shoomliat" opens with some strange clean guitars before heading into more dual guitar riffing and busy picking patterns with quite a bit of that 80's flare and some weird funky runs (really hard to explain, somehow it works out okay) breaking into an acoustic segment - and this track lets keyboards play a significant role as well (though they are unnecessary). After the relatively boring "Fires of Euphoria", "Egocentric Extraversion" blows up immediately with more awesome tapping passages that lead into some rather nice acoustic riffs and a slick solo that's very well written - making for probably my favorite song herein. Oddly enough, closer "Comets of Black Cosmothrash" opens with a full blown rock riff that sounds like it came straight from Motörhead or something, so the song doesn't really fit in with the others at all, and the title might have been more fitting of the brief yet creatively thrashy "Extreme Neuron Noise" (one of the more energetic songs). The cover art is rather crude with a goofy logo more befitting of a high school metal band, and the band photo is rather cheesily posed as well, but the print quality of the packaging is rather good for a CD-R, and I actually like the simple stone photography used elsewhere. All in all this is a very promising demo. These guys need to secure a live drummer for sure (if they don't already have one), and the performances need a little bit of tightening up during some of the more obviously complex riffing, but aside from that (and a stronger recording) they've got a good foundation here. I really like a lot of these riffs a lot, and the solos tend to be fucking awesome, so I'll hope to hear something a bit more polished and complete from this band down the road. There's a lot of cool stuff here that I'd love to see them explore further. (6/10)
Running time - 28:42, Tracks: 7
[Notable tracks: Neon Revelation, Egocentric Extraversion]
Dark Mass - http://www.myspace.com/darkmassdark

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