Darzamat - Transkarpatia Review
by Matt Hensch
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Darzamat haven't really gained the status of a huge metal band, and there's good reasoning for that. Darzamat have been making some atmospheric style goth that usually contains bland instrumental work and songwriting, and they haven't changed a bit from their last album. Transkarpatia is Darzamat's new album that shows minimal progression and is horribly dull.
The main thing that kills this album is the instrumental work. Once one riff starts, it never ends or hardly changes. The guitar work sounds like somewhere between heavy metal riffs with a tiny influence of doom, but is played in a disastrous way. Once again, the main problem with the guitars is the lack of diversity and the repetitive nature of the riffs. The drumming is mediocre at best, but easily wins the instrument award. Drummer Golem typically does some easy bass snare patterns, but he has a couple moments of good blast beats and fast double bass pedal hits. Keyboardist Spectre does a decent job. The music is very keyboard laden and he adds some decent classical and symphonic samples into the sound. The keyboards can get annoying after a while, but is ok overall.
As you probably could guess, the vocal work by singers Flauros and Nera is absolutely ghastly. Male singer Flauros is probably one of the worst singers I've ever heard. Remember Cradle Of Filth singer Dani Filth and his annoying, squeaky voice?. It's clear that Flauros has many similar characteristic with Filth in the vocal category, mainly because his voice is so high pitched and is over used throughout the album. When you have a singer with a strange voice like Flauros, it needs to be used on occasion, and his vocal work is a complete disaster because of the overuse. Female vocalist Nera does a much better job then Flauros, but it still isn't very good. Nera does have a good voice and puts it to use on "Vampiric Prose" when she hits the high notes and sings during the course. "Vampiric Prose" made me think that she is a good vocalist, but the narration she uses is completely horrible. On "Letter To Hell," Nera uses a narration style voice that is just awful. Her voice is unclear and very hard to understand. There are some bad moments in her singing as well. During "The Burning Times," Nera begins to force her vocals, and they don't fit the song and it seems to become irritating. The patterns of both singers tend to keep looping around until the album is over.
All qualities that an album must contain to be good is absent on Transkarpatia. The only time I would recommend this album is if you have a bone to pick with someone. Tie them to a chair, put this album in, and make them listen to it. You'll get even; Transkarpatia is that bad! Avoid at all costs.
CD Info and Links
Darzamat - Transkarpatia Label:Metal Mind Records
Rating:1.8
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