Dark Millennium
Ashore the Celestial Burden

We are in 1992. This is the first album for this German combo, offering a doom-metal with evident Sabbathian influences but not predictable, quite the opposite. Slow and heavy rhythms, dark and enveloping atmospheres, all spiced up with brisk and fast-paced interludes that appear in almost every song.

The guitar work is very good, both on the fast tracks and the more typically doom tempos; the drumming is varied, covering various approaches, perhaps not always perfect, but with original tempo changes and decent power; the bass is somewhat overshadowed (sometimes also by the low and heavy tuning of the two guitars) but helps create the dark musical atmosphere.

Special mention for Christian Martens' vocals, which may or may not appeal to the listener depending on their taste, but from my perspective fit well with both the cadenced parts and the more rhythmic ones.

Many, in my opinion, are the memorable episodes of the album, starting with the first "Below The Holy Fatherlands," slow and gloomy at the beginning, then furiously dragging towards the end, up to the magnificent "The Atmosphere" that closes the album with its 7 and a half minutes of very slow passages enriched by floating arpeggios that make the medieval aura left by this work even more pronounced.

The double episode "Black Literature" - "Inside The Sunburnt Thoughts Of Frost" is stunning, magically glued together by a muddy organ passage.

Then comes what I believe is the highest point of the album with "Father Legatus-Of Symbols, Nature And Birth," where the poignant pessimism that pervades the entire piece concludes with the invocation "Bury my soul in the ash of the candle you light" shouted at the beginning and whispered at the end.

Speaking of the lyrics, the remarkable coexistence (which serves as a common thread through all 10 tracks) between a medieval paganism and a religious depth ("Black Literature", "Medina's Spell") that never falls into banal denial but assumes an even more mystical veil infused with the magical presence ("Wizardry Assemblage", Beyond The Dragon's Eye) of an occultism inspired by nature and Celtic mythology.

There are no fillers in this work by Dark Millennium, and even the brief "Disillusion" is a gem that with its elusive melancholy fits perfectly into the jewel that is "ASHORE THE CELESTIAL BURDEN".

Ultimately, an album that I would absolutely recommend to lovers of the genre, from my modest point of view an absolute masterpiece.      (Jx)