DARKEST ERA — The Last Caress Of Light (review)

DARKEST ERA — The Last Caress Of Light album cover

Album · 2011 · Heavy Metal

4/5 · 2011-04-20
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The Last Caress of Light is the debut full-length album from Irish metal band Darkest Era. Darkest Era is a band which seems to be getting associated with folk metal (which for all I know could be true of their prior EP’s since I haven’t heard them), but on this debut effort the band produces what is pretty much a traditional heavy metal album with a few folk influences thrown in for flavour, but they don’t dominate the overall sound of the record.

To further elaborate on the band’s sound, the folk influence is actually a pretty strong one, but the band is clearly more concerned with the metal side of things and they incorporate their folk side through use of a guitar driven sound rather than including a range of traditional instruments that other folk metal bands such as their countrymen Cruachan do. It goes beyond that though, because in general the songs lyrically fit with the whole folk thing, with a focus on Celtic mythology and written in such a way that when delivered by the band’s frontman Dwayne Maguire, often known as Krum, the songs sound as if they could easily be translated into folk songs if the guitars were stripped away, as the band proves with the track Poem to the Gael, an acoustic folk song. As it is though the band musically focuses on the traditional metal setup of vocals, guitars, bass and drums to deliver their songs, resulting in an album that in sound is an album more along the lines of classic traditional metal acts than the likes of bands such as Cruachan or Waylander.

The writing on The Last Caress of Light is pretty strong and the band opens up the album with the excellent track The Morrigan. Listening to this it’s very clear right from the off that as a band Darkest Era are very competent at their instruments and that in Krum they have a frontman with a great and powerful voice which suits their music perfectly. The quality of the writing is kept consistent throughout the album as well, resulting overall in a quality release with other tracks such as Beneath the Frozen Sky and The Last Caress of Light Before the Dark firmly establishing themselves of highlights of the album. The aforementioned Poem to the Gael is the most surprisingly track though, because as I mentioned it’s an acoustic folk song. It very clearly showcases that the band is versatile and brings those folk leanings to the fore and I’d definitely consider it another highlight of this very fine album.

The Last Caress of Light is overall a highly impressive debut album from this young band. I recommend it to fans of bands with a classic metal sound mostly but folk metal fans may also take some enjoyment out of it so long as they remember to approach it with the knowledge that despite some hype about being folk metal, what folk there is on the album is minimal, and the album shouldn’t be taken as folk metal by any means.

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven)