Review by Carl on April 16, 2020.

If you scan through my list of reviews you'll see that I primarily deal in death and black metal, grindcore and fast thrash. You know, brutality and bloodshed for all, that kinda thing, so it may surprise some that I also have an interest in the darker and weirder side of electronic music. I'm a huge sucker for dark ambient and the experimental sounds brought to us by labels like Cold Meat Industry or Tesco Organisation to name a few. Music that can be equal parts soothing as well as unsettling and can be as terrifying as it can calm the nerves.

Dark Ages was a side effort by members of Drudkh, a band I do not listen to and that I have no particular interest in either, I'm afraid. The thing that actually drew my attention to this project is the fact that this band establishes the right mood for their concept and sounds by the artwork. Utilizing paintings by great late medieval artists like Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Brueghel the Elder, they immediately set the stage for the soundscapes to follow. It is the right atmosphere that allows the music to take you back to times long gone by, carried away by the haunting sounds emanating from the speakers.

These soundscapes utilize slowly unfolding swathes of keyboard drones with haunting melodies and soothing sounds popping up, creating a majestic tapestry of unsettling darkness. The band make use of different moods to their songs to establish variation between the individual tracks themselves, allowing for different types of emotions to come through. There's the cascade of soothing bells and laid-back choral keyboard sounds of tracks like 'Leprosy' and 'Avarice', but there's also the unsettling, more threatening ambience of 'Deformity', with its haunting tubular bells and organ sounds, and 'Malice', with its ominous Viking choirs and sparse percussion. All of these moods and atmosphere blend together into majestic soundscapes that are abundant with ambience, in which relaxation and unease can go hand in hand. It's almost cinematic. Too bad it's all over in 42 minutes.

You have to be willing to go along with this type of music, of course. I can easily imagine that there are those who consider this to be the pinnacle of boredom, deriding it as "elevator music", but if you are willing to go along into the world of Dark Ages, you'll find yourself a beautifully crafted piece of work in which dread and ease are combined in exquisitely constructed soundscapes that drip with ambience. If the earliest works of Mortiis, Rob Darken's Lord Wind or releases by a label like Cryo Chamber don't turn you off, this will fit you just fine.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Review by Felix on January 8, 2023.

Amystery hail from Bavaria, the most catholic region in Germany. M-A says they are still active, although their last studio album was released in 2010. I must confess that the dudes always stayed under my radar. I do not remember a single article about the band. However, I hope M-A is right in view of their generic and pristine black metal. Of course, it fails to start a genre revolution, but this is the last thing I am waiting for. Amystery make good use the typical tools and this approach leads to welcome results.

The production is pretty raw and appropriate to the sub genre. Maybe the drums suffer a bit from their clanging sound, but this little shortcoming does not disturb the appropriate overall impression. One can also lament that the mix fails to lend the album an individual face. Nevertheless, its coldness and, well, spiritual purity influence the end result in a positive way. Better still, the song material also deserves a positive rating. Okay, “Thy Spiral” lacks a deeper meaning. It comes and goes without making a lot of sense. But in general, Amystery know how to pen a strong piece of black metal and they do not lack precision whenever it comes to one of the numerous high speed sections. “Praise Darkness”, enjoy its expressive lines at the beginning, confirms both previous theses. Moreover, it impresses with its dynamic, its double bass hell and its raging guitar lines. Not to mention the fact that Amystery prove a good sense for the right number of breaks per song. Most tracks are absolutely coherent without being monotonous. On the other hand, the Bavarians are far from indulging in experimental ideas. They just find a good balance between stubborn blackness and the necessary quantum of variety.

“Transilvanian Hunger” is surely an album the Germans are familiar with. Certainly, they did not record part II of this classic, nobody ever will. But their music spreads pretty similar vibes and is definitely influenced by a lot of hateful works that came from Scandinavia. Eternity from Germany can also be mentioned for orientation. Songs like the opener “Voices from the Crypts” reflect the excessive power of this formation, in particular with regard to the despotic, profound guitar lines. They form these special genre melodies from time to time and do also not shy away from a short, mid-paced salute to Celtic Frost. You’ll find it in “Metamorphose”, another nice embodiment of diabolic thoughts. Anyway, Amystery’s surprisingly mature debut, equipped with a stylish artwork, avoids almost completely stinking fillers from the beginning to the end. Each and every musicians delivers passionately, not only the lead vocalist whose portfolio covers desperate, extended cries as well as misanthropic nagging. So in my humble opinion, the Bavarians did a pretty good job back in 2007, not outstanding, but absolutely competitive in every respect. The only thing I miss is the cryptic silence that the title promises, but naturally that’s no problem at all.

Rating: 7.7 out of 10