Dark Suns
Swanlike

THE REVIEW

Can I do stealth advertising??? Well, I'm doing it, at most you'll lynch me.

So yes, let's put our heads in order... browsing metal-archives the other day, I came across Dark Suns, a German band formed in 1997 by a certain Tobias Gommlich and Niko Knappe: now you might say "well, what's strange about that?" absolutely nothing, but I was attracted by the musical genre they proposed, which is extreme progressive metal. I thought maybe they would be a clone of Opeth and in a sense, I was right, but only in a certain sense.

After a demo dated 1998, these three Germans returned to the market with "Swanlike" in 2002, which proves to be an extremely complex and dark work from the first listen, straddling Opeth-style progressive death metal, all the while influenced by that doom that made the fame of bands like Katatonia and Anathema. The album is made up of eight long-duration tracks, with the exception of the penultimate episode "In Silent Harmony II," with durations reaching up to 14 minutes.

Musically, "Swanlike" is a particularly elaborate work, with majestic melodies in some parts and sparse in others, with ever-evolving rhythms; nonetheless, it does not come across as a heavy or overly sweet work, something that happens with several progressive metal records.

The compositional peaks of the album can be found in the two suites, the first of which opens the record and is also the title track, and the second is positioned last and goes by the name "Sufference"; alongside these two are episodes like "The Sun Beyond Your Eden" or the progressive "Virtuous Dilemma", all tracks that feature similar structural characteristics, that is, with alternations between acoustic and electric guitars, parts in clean vocals and others in guttural growls, clearly inspired by Mikael Akerfeldt. The most interesting parts, in this musical framework, turn out to be, despite the "extreme" genre, the acoustic ones, extremely polished and highly effective, in which a particularly elegant and inspired guitar-working stands out over others, giving the compositions an extra touch of originality, being inspired by a more baroque tradition, compared to the traditional '70s progressive rock.

The lyrics are perhaps those that most betray the death influence, being more focused on personal topics, tinged with a palpable melancholy emphasized by the choice of terms and themes such as death (never treated violently) and at times evoking colder atmospheres almost closer to the black tradition, as in the case of "Inside Final Dreams".

Regarding the technical side of the album, we are faced with a well-executed work: the individual members of the band perform commendable, technical, and clean work, but which also translates into a continuous melodic research. Even the recording and mixing are not bad, but although the sounds are clear, a little more effort could have been made to make it even better.

In conclusion, although "Swanlike" will not go down in the metal annals and can never be considered a cornerstone of the genre, it will always remain a decidedly good work, which even if it falls short on originality in some parts, is especially enjoyable to listen to.

Tracklist:

1)Swanlike

2)Infiltration

3)The Sun Beyond Your Eden

4)Virtuous Dilemma

5)Inside Final Dreams

6)The Neverending

7)In Silent Harmony II

8)Suffering