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Dark Fortress - Séance review



Reviewer:
8.0

100 users:
7.98
Band: Dark Fortress
Album: Séance
Release date: January 2006


01. Ghastly Indoctrination
02. CataWomb
03. Requiem Grotesque
04. While They Sleep
05. To Harvest The Artefacts Of Mockery
06. Poltergeist
07. Revolution: Vanity
08. Incide
09. Shardfigures
10. Insomnia

I was already impressed with Dark Fortress previous effort, "Stab Wounds" so I decided to give a try to their "Séance" album. The cover art is anther masterpiece by artist extraordinaire Travis Smith, and it really encapsulates the whole mood of the album.

Dark Fortress is not your typical ultra fast-paced black metal band, they take their time to elaborate atmospheres in their songs, from bizarre string sections to screams in the background, Séance is a total listening experience. Music can be fast and aggressive or mid-paced and depressive; this bipolarity makes this album a worthy listen.

The album revolves around the conceptual idea of the direct contrast between the here and now and the hereafter, the fragility of human existence with its most striking weakness -ignorance, arrogance and false illusions- and the crass finality of death.
Paranormal beings and out-of-body experiences is just the tip of the iceberg in this highly elaborated and conceptual album.

The 10 tracks of the album last more than an hour, so you got plenty to pick, from the eerie opener "Ghastly Indoctrination" to the Doomish "While They Sleep", songs like "To Harvest The Artefacts Of Mockery" and "Revolution: Vanity" are more straight Black Metal songs while "Incide" and "Insomnia" follow a less traveled path in the realms of Black Metal.

Séance is a difficult album to digest, no doubt about it, you may need more than a listen to fully understand it, but is worth the while I assure you. I just read they're releasing a new album this year, I'll be waiting impatiently the results of their next step in evolution as a band.

Written by Undercraft | 08.06.2007




Comments

Comments: 6   Visited by: 85 users
14.06.2007 - 15:53
Rating: 10
Passenger
Lost To Apathy
One of the best Black Metal albums of the decade, if you ask me, honest. The atmosphere is just mindblowing.
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You don't make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bullshit and you know it ~ Mean Streets
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16.06.2007 - 10:17
Rating: 8
Sunioj

This album, is indeed not your typical black metal album...the proggression into differrent phases of the songs, the vocals, the surprisingly good production of the drums, the guitars are also amazing...and I agree the opening song ghastly indoctrination is one eerie song...this whole album is just eerie.
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18.09.2008 - 07:27
Uirapuru
Liver Failure
i cant actually enjoy this album, hear it about 4 times and cant found any bid deal... the slowest parts are very boring, like a black metal version of Katatonia or something (Shardfigures specially).. even the fast ''To Harvest The Artefacts Of Mockery'' sounds boring. worse Dark fortress album.
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member of the true crusade against old school heavy metal, early 80s thrash, NWOBHM, traditional doom, first and second wave black metal, old school death metal, US power metal, 70s prog rock and atmospheric doomsludgestoner. o/
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23.04.2012 - 22:36
Butcheer

German Super Melodic Black Metal !!! RESPECT !!!
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23.04.2012 - 23:05
Olli

I prefer Ylem and Stab wounds to this, good band though!
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When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."
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02.10.2019 - 20:26
Bad English
Tage Westerlund
Written by Uirapuru on 18.09.2008 at 07:27

i cant actually enjoy this album, hear it about 4 times and cant found any bid deal... the slowest parts are very boring, like a black metal version of Katatonia or something (Shardfigures specially).. even the fast ''To Harvest The Artefacts Of Mockery'' sounds boring. worse Dark fortress album.


where did you get slow parts here?
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Life is to short for LOVE, there is many great things to do online !!!

Stormtroopers of Death - ''Speak English or Die''
apos;'
[image]
I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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