Dark Castle - Flight of Pegasus (Artist of the Month) Review
by Mark Hensch
.
Like the moon itself falling from the sky, Dark Castle's debut Flight of Pegasus is shimmering, apocalyptic, and mind-blowing all at once. Throughout the disc's surprisingly brisk five tracks, listeners are treated to a world of ever-shifting hues and complex, magical events; Pegasus morphs with all the frequency of clay in the hands of an indecisive potter. This intricate, dynamic, and esoteric tapestry of sound is expansive and heavy, loud and bright, a true cornucopia of sounds and colors. As I let the album sink further-and-further into my psyche, I can't help but wonder what kind of mystical connections two lone people need to make music this dense, this strong. Though I am and will probably always be a rabid doom metal fanatic, there exists in Dark Castle's overall sonic qualities a hint of the intangible, perhaps the otherworldly. To sum it up, this is Neurosis brawling with Electric Wizard on the Dark Side of the Moon.
Said epic battle is kick-started by the ominous, rumbling riffs of "Crystal Seas." "Seas" is a sprawling prism of textured guitars, with axe-grinder Stevie laying down half-galloping charges which stumble with all the intoxicating grace of drugged elephants. This mammoth display of perplexity is contrasted by hypnotic percussion that would do Mastodon proud; skinsman Robbie is versatile and intricate in his work. The band isn't afraid to inject squealing, watery harmonics and jets of brilliantly shiny tones to the guitars, giving the song a transparent, ringing feel, one that truly (and pleasantly) f*cks with the head. The melancholy clean chords which open "Growing Slow" patiently unfold from neo-Spanish folk-doom into immeasurable vistas of majestic holocaust. Tribal war-drums snake through forests of buzzing menace, places of tense darkness in which unseen forces harass passer-by with guttural howls and sickened roars. "Flight" has all the qualities of an outtake from the new Neurosis album, its ebb-and-flow of spiritual warfare between ethereal melody and dense, crushing darkness providing a constricting atmosphere of conflict. Like a flock of birds comprised of various glittering minerals, the guitars soar effortlessly into the sun. The powerful catharsis of the rambling passages on offer here (as well on the other songs) is highly similar to Kylesa, but in my opinion Dark Castle are much more talented at pushing listeners over the edge of their own brooding tensions. If, reading this, one doesn't believe me, Stevie's insane screech mid-"Flight" should prove the naysayers wrong, the heart-wrenching explosions of sheer emotion meshing perfectly with the suddenly slamming music. As if all these curve-balls aren't enough, the band throws a novel cover of Led Zeppelin's "No Quarter" at listeners. As skeptical as I was, the band do an excellent job of converting it into pounding doom. To keep their take fresh, an equal measure of fragile clean vocals and gruff growls have appeared, their tricky dualism better suited to the slower, more-fuzzed out version than anything Led Zep would have done on their own. Pegasus ends with the arresting "Sands Hold the Time," the likes of which is kick-started by a thundering drum roll, pulsing doom, and alien wails. Sounding like an ISIS-jam in an anti-gravity field gone wrong, the whole thing is a beautifully frantic crawl of plodding sounds.
Fluid, dynamic, and sonically-arresting, Flight of Pegasus is a masterful debut for a relatively new band. Perhaps even more importantly this is the simple fact that Dark Castle are already well on their way to crafting a signature sound. Though tortured, sludged-out doom is by no means a new concept, adding ever-increasing layers of surreal psychedelia and swirling, deep structures to the music is. Flight of Pegasus is a trippy head-rush through vistas of time and space, a cosmic journey that somehow returns full-circle to the very place one started from. It is this sense of Deja-vu amidst radiant, original doom that makes this such an enjoyable demo, and Dark Castle such an interesting new band. Keep your eyes out for this one, and be sure to see how they fare in my yearly best-of lists...they're already there, the only question remaining is in what capacity.
Dark Castle's Flight of Pegasus
1. Crystal Seas
2. Growing Slow
3. Flight
4. No Quarter (Led Zeppelin Cover)
5. Sands Hold the Time
CD Info and Links
Dark Castle - Flight of Pegasus (Artist of the Month)
Rating:
Preview and Purchase This CD Online
Visit the official homepage
More articles for this artist
.
