The Last Caress Of Light 2011

"Having released a number of EPs, Northern Irish metal band Darkest Era released their debut LP "The Last Caress of Light" earlier this year. The band are described as a folk metal band, but I do not detect an abundance of fol elements on this album (which could, admittedly, be due to ignorance on my part). To me it sounds more like a blend of gothic metal, power metal and traditional metal with a couple of folk metal elements. It seems to me that the main folk elements consist of guitar melody patterns and a dominant use of 3/4 patterns (granted, "A Poem to the Gael" is an acoustic folk song - and it's actually a very nice piece of music).

Darkest Era make use of the classic metal instrumentation (drums, bass, guitars, vocals), and they do so with great success. I like how they focus on guitar harmonies both in riffs and lead melodies, and, to me, it's the the shared guitar work of guitarists Ade Mulgrew of Sarah Weighell er which constitute the forte of this band; vocalist Dwayne Maguire also derseves special mention, since his powerful, yet emotional, singing contributes an important melancholic dimension to the music on this album.

So, there's some great stuff on this album, to be sure, but I think that there is a tendency for the music to become a bit monotonous in the long run. I think that the primary reason is that the band use the same 3/4 drive in virtually every song, and the same types of harmonies. It is one of those albums, where you can get a real kick out of listening to a couple of tracks at the time, but where you shouldn't listen to the entire album in one go. That would simply be unfair to the individual songs, because they are good and the listening experience of the individual song should not be spoiled by the entire album's tendency for sameyness.

Now, the final track "The Last Caress of Light" strikes me as being a blueprint for what Darkest Era could do to avoid this in the future. It is an epic 11 minutes track (that's not so much it though), in which Darkest Era change from the usual 3/4 drive to a 4/4 drive, and that gives the song a completely new type of energy. I really think that Darkest Era should experiment more with time signatures. They're obviously good musicians, and they obviously have a knack for writing haunting and catchy guitar melodies and guitar riffs, and they have unique singer who - single-handedly - contributes and additional dimension to the music. Experimenting with other time signature than 3/4 should be no problem, and I think it would take Darkest Era up where the certainly deserve to be.

To reiterate, this is a good album with lots of good stuff on it. There is potential here, and it is worth checking out.

(review originally posted on metalmusicarchives.com)"