Darzamat "Transkarpatia" CD

Re-release of this classic Darzamat album 15-years anniversary edition!!!

Transkarpatia is the fifth album by the Polish symphonic black metal band Darzamat, released in 2005 and recorded at Los Angered Recordings in Sweden. The album was produced by Andy LaRocque (King Diamond).

What would you get if you combined Dimmu Borgir with The Gathering? Quite possible you'd get something like Poland's Darzamat. This band have been around the scene for a few years now, but it's clear on Transkarpatia that they are now really starting to hit their stride. The band plays an extremely symphonic style of extreme metal, with abundant keyboards and crunchy guitar riffs, while evil male black metal shrieks (in a similar style to Dimmu Borgir, Cradle of Filth, Old Man' Child, and Bal-Sagoth) do battle with soaring female vocals for a truly impressive sound. There's no shortage of fine songs here, such as the stampeding "Vampiric Prose", the orchestral "Hallucinations", the extreme metal frenzy of "Blacward", or the massive crunch of "Recurring Yell". The female vocals of Nera make for a wonderful tempering agent to the growls and shrieks from Flauros, as the two work marvels on one of the most progressive tracks here, called "Old FOrm of Worship", a tune that even recalls Nightwish with it's gothic tone. The band even mixes crushing doom with symphonic keyboards on "Tempted By Rot".

The only real downside to this album is that are perhaps a few too many segue instrumental tracks, as well as a couple of mostly vocal pieces featuring Nera devilishly crooning to an atmospheric and gothic instrumental track. These songs sort of break up the pace of this otherwise strong release of symphonic black & gothic metal, but not enough to look over the good amount of killer material here. Darzamat have a style that is sure to turn a lot of heads and gain some new fans with this one.

Sample: youtube.com/watch?v=c5BqmJ0ODpE