Band:	Sacrum
Album:	Darkstricken
Style:	Death doom metal
Release date:	2006

01. Enter The Darkstricken
02. Make My Day
03. The Shrine Falling
04. Human Error
05. The Ones Without A Name
06. Evil Dreams
07. Scarred Beneath The Skin
08. The Innocent Tears
09. Fear Of The Unknown
10. Dark Festivity

Even if "Darkstricken" is not the first album of Sacrum, a band from Poland, this is the first time that I heard something about them and I'm happy to have this chance actually. Between Gothic, Doom and Death Metal, this really melancholic band is a great addition in my discography. No doubt that Sacrum deserves to have the chance to be known outside of Poland and I hope that the re-edition of their last album through the label Metal Mind will help them a lot.

"Darkstricken" is not a perfect album (I will tell you why later) but it's full of good things, especially good songs (the most important thing that we want to know first of course?). Between Paradise Lost, Cathedral and Doom Death bands this release is a really nice discovery for me. The songs are extremely melodic with Death like clean vocals this is always melancholic but not so slow and definitely not too dark. In fact, "Darkstricken" is a bit like an easy of access Doom Metal release but it's not pure Doom actually and then I cannot say that this is commercial (at the opposite of Swallow The Sun for example). I really like too the fact that sometime the music can be aggressive and some other time a bit more theatrical a la Candlemass with some kind of Heavy vocals. If you finally add that the songs are long and complex with some nice lines of keyboards which give some little progressive touches to the music, it's hard to find something wrong in this album.

That's right except some little problems sometime with the voice of the singer who can be able to be really good like a bit more average (especially with his clean vocals) "Darkstricken" is a good album. Its production is correct and really the band has its own personality because even if we can find some influences which come from other bands, it's impossible to compare them to Sacrum. Really this band as its own personality and even if the songs sometime have some choruses which are a bit too "radio", all in all it's well done and I really believe that this band has the potential to become famous.

If you're looking for good accessible dark Metal, "Darkstricken" is highly recommended. I will wait a bit and see the next album of the combo to say that they're real killers in the genre but if they can produce other albums like "Darkstricken", no doubt that they will deserve a place at the top of the list of the dark Metal combos. "Darkstricken" is original with a lot of good ideas, don't miss it if you like to listen to Doom and Gothic Metal.