CoC : Dargaard - Eternity Rites : Review

Dargaard - _Eternity Rites_
(Draenor Prod. / Napalm, 1998)
by: Pedro Azevedo (8 out of 10)

There are certainly plenty of ingredients here that are bound to please many listeners who enjoy certain gothic elements in metal, even though _Eternity Rites_ presents a lot of darkwave and no metal whatsoever. The music produced by this duo is often beautiful, although generally attempting to remain dark, and usually has a somewhat medieval feel. Dargaard show how good _Eternity Rites_ can really get when the crystalline female vocals entwine with a well woven musical background, creating a beautiful and, in a way, majestic result in tracks such as "Demon Eyes", "Down to the Halls of the Blind" and "... Of Broken Stones". Things get really moody and very well done in these and other songs, achieving quite an impressive result. Nevertheless, despite the eerie intro (which includes most of the album's few black snarls), the rest of _Eternity Rites_ isn't remarkably dark -- there's just a somewhat dark atmosphere surrounding most of the music. What's not so great about all this is that the medieval touches occasionally get a bit too folky ("Fuer Grissa Est Dranka", for example), and while this doesn't necessarily ruin the songs, it does subtract from the overall atmosphere -- what's worse is that some songs become a bit repetitive. Still, this is a very good album that has the potential to attract many metal fans.

(article published 16/1/1999)