Tuesday, September 23, 2014

DARKYRA BLACK: ”Dragon Tears”

Rating: R
Label: Unsigned/Self Released 2014
Review by Rich ”The Meister” Dillon

Sometimes around the Rock United round table there are new releases up for the review choice from any of our writers.  And sometimes a few of those releases sink to the bottom of the barrel as they are not striking on a first listen and no one reviews them.  Unfortunately that’s the case with Darkyra Black’s Dragon Tears.  The album that was released back in February is a ”Gothic interpretation of a geisha like tale that ends in tragedy, love, loss, lust, betrayal and revenge”.  Darkyra herself is Australian born and recruited the session musicians for the record with the assistance of the company Online Recording Masters based in Athens, Greece.

This is a lengthy recording with ten of the twelve compositions being well over five minutes runtime, many higher than six and one near ten minutes.  The description of ”cinematic metal, gothic metal, art metal and symphonic metal” on Darkyra’s website and Facebook page had me cringing before I even spun the CD.  The opening track ”Madoka’s Lament” has a moody and dark brooding feeling to it created by the sombre piano notes.  I less than enjoyed the track finding it heavily operatic and basically painful to listen to.  The pleasantly titled ”Lullaby of Death” was no different.  I was able to make it through ”Eyes Wide Shut” but had to abort listening during ”Japanese Frankenstein”.  I mean no disrespect to the musicians and songwriters here; I just really, really don’t enjoy this type of metal.

Bottom line:  I love Darkyra Black’s voice, but not the musical arrangements nor operatic style.  I would love to hear her sing some good straight ahead metal or hard rock, but that would probably make her cringe.

http://www.darkyra.com/

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