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Band: Darkher
Album title: The Buried Storm
Release date: 15 April 2022
Label: Prophecy Productions
Genre: Post-Doom, Dark Folk, Ethereal
Tracklist:
01. Sirens Nocturne
02. Lowly Weep
03. Unbound
04. Where the Devil Waits
05. Love's Sudden Death
06. The Seas
07. Immortals
08. Fear Not, My King
The dark sinister flames arise from the cold heavy northern seas. Darkher returns! Almost six years after the magnificent debut full-length, Realms, now it's time for another haunting trip into the intimate world of the artist Jayn Maiven aka Darkher. The highly anticipated The Buried Storm is darkened storm of tidal emotions that Jayn so masterfully converts into music, this time accompanied by Christopher Smith on drums and guests on cello, violin and backing vocals. It's rage and serenity at once, and if we were taken to observe the rivers and streams with the previous album, now we are carried out to the sea, with only raw emotions to navigate and guide us.
Darkher's music is an alluring timeless voyage and hypnotic ritualistic experience that paints picturesque yet rich sonic depths. It's melancholic, sometimes minimalistic, but powerful in its execution. The songs are felt like a delicate pain wrapped in radiant beauty that pierces the heart slowly yet without hesitation. Musically speaking Darkher is doom in the first place, slowly unveiling with crushing emotive melodies all of its splendour and mysticism. There are also traces of dark apocalyptic folk music, post-rock, dark ambient, esoteric, gothic and especially a lot of drone. Jayn's voice is sensually powerful; its ethereal vibe brings shivers down the spine. Like a witch, which casts a spell upon the listeners' senses to bind them tightly within a thorn-spiked nocturnal beauty.
The sounds of mournful cello, tearful violin and additional haunting keys make the overall atmosphere murky as hell, there's barely a ray of light to brighten the dark world of Darkher. Tuned down heavily distorted droning guitars, echoing bass and apocalyptic drums swirl into a radiant wave of sensory madness that conjures the iridescent cinematic scenes in which it becomes hard to tell whether there lies beauty in darkness or if it is the other way around. The frightening melancholy of "Lowly Weep" and the captivating sorrow of "Where The Devil Waits", with a beautiful doleful acoustic guitar, are pure masterpieces of feminine dark music that neither Chelsea Wolfe nor Loreena McKennitt have ever been able to do in such a way.
The almost tribalistic and minimalistic gloom of "Love's Sudden Death" is a slow-paced deceptive audio nutrition for the lonely ones, while the beautiful "The Seas" is an evocative serene acoustic doom/ambient splendour with a deeply refined sense of melancholic music. Tender but powerful, with so very rich multidimensional sound, "Immortals" tries to wake up damned dead souls from their restless slumber. Don't expect the album to end somehow optimistically because at the end, the darkest thing named "Fear Not, My King" awaits to drown you in the endless void.
Meditative, sometimes catchy, but throughout immersive and dark, Darkher's eerie art of frightening music easily transcends musical boundaries with its broad appeal to friends of dark sounds regardless of genre. Once again, Darkher made a truly transcendental album, a sonic journey for your mind and soul, a voyage into darkness for times of solitude and comfort. The Buried Storm is not an easy listening experience, rather, it claims devotion, and it needs time before it unveils its pure beauty and multidimensional character. Highly recommended!
The review was written by Tomaz
Rating: 9/10
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