Darkness Needs Us

Lord Of The Darkest Freedom

Hand Of Light

Vigour Of The Dead

Wings Of Kry

Bearer Of Moonlight Decay

Lycanthropic Warmasters

Fire-raiser Of Devastation

We Came Back With The Nightfall

Mortal Reality

Our Blood Is The Ocean

Forest Of Bane

Wings Of Kry (Substracted Blast Mix)

Godslayer N. Vassago (Guitars, Bass, Synths, Drums, Composer of Black Metal-Songs)

Gabriel Wolf (Gothic Instruments, Composer of Gothic-Neo Classical Songs)

Atilla Csihar (Aborym, Tormentor/ Vocals on track 1)

Ville Sorvali (Moonsorrow, Amoral/ Vocals on track 2)

Frederic Mercier aka “AOD” (Dagorlad/ Vocals on track 3)

Peter Meynckens (Axamenta, Bûtcher/ Vocals on track 6)

Sture Dingsoyr (Windir, Ulcus/ Vocals on track 8)

Marcus Ehlin (Siebenbürgen/ Vocals on track 9)

Christopher B. Wildman (Asgaroth/ Vocals on track 11)

RMS Hreidmarr (Anorexia Nervosa/ Vocals on track 12)

Morfeus (Limbonic Art/ Remixed version of “Legions Of Kry”)

distributed in Switzerland by Irascible Distribution

preview - review by Boris "Azrael" Witta ___               

“Too many cooks waste the meal.” This is a German saying, but I think the sense is also clear in English. And it was the first thing I thought when I looked at the many (9) guest musicians. But surprise, surprise: The mixture is very good, and each voice fits very good to the respective song. Well, you might ask why so many singers were necessary, but let’s leave this question and turn to the music. Finnugor, the duo from Hungary, play symphonic Black Metal with a lot of keyboards, synths and effects. But again a surprise: Normally, if a band uses so many keys, after a while, the listener has enough and it get’s boring and also sinewy. But not on the epos “Darkenss Needs” us, which is a very long album with over 67 minutes and which is the third output of Finnugor. No, the keys and synths are very variable and in many parts, they sound like real instruments, for example in the middle of the opener “Lord Of The Darkest Freedom”, where the key sounds exactly like a pan-flute. 

The production is very good and very balanced, but that’s normally in this genre.  The guitars are hard enough and most of the time, the lay the soundwall and let the melodies to the keys and synths. Don’t forget the bass: Most of the time, it’s not too loud, but as listener, you always know that he’s here. 

But unfortunately, there’s also a weak point on “Darkness Needs Us”. A very weak point: The drums. In the booklet is written drums, but I’m quite sure that this is a damn drumcomputer, because the drums sound very sterile and not really origin. And it has no power at all, the drums are totally in the background, and the worst thing are the blastbeats – sometimes without doublebass and sometimes without snare. Helllo? Do you remember the album “Ultimate Death Worship” from Limbonic Art? The songs were great, but the drumcomputer was horrible. Like here.

But apart of this, “Darkness Needs Us” is a very strong and a very good album. With better drums, with real drums, it could have become a classic… 

Well, let’s have look at some songs now, first of all the titletrack “Darkness Needs Us”: It’s kind of an ambient Intro, with dark, obsucre keyboards and a hysteric and brutal voice of Atilla Csihar, Ex-Mayhem and Tormentor. The first real song is “Lord Of The Darkest Freedom”, starting with a short, classic Intro and then turning into blasting and a loud Black Metal – scream from Ville Sorvali. During the following barely seven minutes, the song has a lot of tempo-changes and some fantastic keyboards with the great pan-flute middle-part as I said before. The next one, “Hand Of Light”, could be an Finntroll-hymn: Dancy Humpa-rhythms, the typical folk-melodies and straight and harsh guitars. Cool! 

Also “Bearer Of Moonlight Decay” is very interesting: Starting in midtempo, it gets very fast at the end and there are the the best and the most intensive guitar melodies on “Darkness Needs Us”, cold, nordic, sad, and a bit reminding to bands like Judas Iscariot (R.I.P.) or also Nargaroth. “Wings Of Kry” and “Forest Of Bane” are just atmospheric keyboard-sounds, underlined with vocals, and both songs spread a majestic and epic feeling, a special and dark ambience and atmosphere. From “Wings Of Kry” exists also a special mix at the end of the album, with guitars and drums, but prefer the original version, also because the vocals in the special mix are too much distorted. 

So, what’s the quintessence of “Darkness Needs Us”? On the plus-side, we have the different vocals, the fantastic keys, synths and effects and the guitars. On the minus-side, we have the drums and one a last song, which isn’t really good. Alright, that makes ten points less one point for the drums and 0.6 point for the last song and some parts on “Darkness Needs Us” which aren’t as good as the rest of the album. But in general, “Darkness Needs Us” is a great, a strong and most of the time very origin album which needs to be discovered. Very sad is only, that we will never see this project live… But banging at home is also cool!

Rating: 8.4/10  

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