Dark Horizon – Darkness Falls Upon Mankind

Dark Horizon is an as-of-yet independent German Melodic Death/Black Metal quartet – One that was officially founded back in 2006 under the name Devastation, even if the name was altered to the above-described Dark Horizon a year later.

They released their first Demo another year following this name change, before submitting themselves to the task of creating a Full-length album in 2012, which in turn was followed up by an EP in 2017. Aside from that, I have been able to find very little information about the band until the year 2020, where a mass exodus seemed to occur within the band resulting in everyone except for the lead singer leaving for undisclosed reasons. New people were brought in, they found their stride as a coherent whole and how, just last month, reemerged onto the musical stages of the world with their newest release, a Full-length record entitled Darkness Falls Upon Mankind.

Now, straight off the bat I might as well disclose that I have next to no knowledge about the band prior to receiving their newest album – And as such, I will not be comparing it to their older releases, instead trying to delve deep into what this record says about the band and their approaches.

And, first impressions? Not too shabby. The band itself makes no attempt at hiding the fact that their sound of choice is a mixture of Death and Black Metal, as seen through as massively melodious lense – Which works for me. I usually have a deep-seated disdain for virtually any mixture of the genres (with markedly few exceptions) due to having a strong preference for the individual genres in their own right (that, and no doubt a considerable case of me getting on in years and hence less susceptible to new things, whether musical or otherwise). However, their conscious decision to take both of these genres and mix them somewhat equally and tweak the result to make it more symphonic, something the two ‘base’ genres are not known to inherently be on their own, created a rather interesting dynamic overall.

The songs are kept concise (averaging at around three to four minutes with a single outlier), lasting for just long enough to showcase how a rolling guitar riff can fit seamlessly together with (granted, somewhat muted) blast beats while near-growls ride the resulting wave, spouting litanies of the rise of evil and the inevitable coming of darkness. This approach they manage to keep rolling across eleven tracks, adding up to an impressive fifty-three minutes of playtime, significantly longer than the industry standard these days for both of Dark Horizon’s ‘parent genres’ – Even if I will admit that this does include two cover tracks, one from Naglfar (always a good source of inspiration in my opinion) and another from Mithotyn.

Recommended to fans of Melodic Black and Death Metal who are either younger or just plain more adventurous than myself overall – You will not be disappointed. At the very least, I will make it easy for you by adding a link to the album in its entirety below.

https://www.facebook.com/DarkHorizonOFFICIAL