Day: December 5, 2014

The Spanish band Dantalion have been active for several years, during which time they have passed from the black sound of the early days, diluted with time in more melodic moods and depressive shades to arrive, finally, to the current form of gothic death doom. The transformation has succeeded in the best possible way, judging by the performance of this latest album Where Fear Is Born, which presents a series of tracks that are quite effective, even though they are completely in line with the trends of the genre. The Vigo band uses all its experience in drawing poignant passages, mostly entrusted to a guitar work that does not skimp on long solos. Medium-long songs follow one another without any particular moment of tiredness, showing on the contrary more than one episode of splendid workmanship among which, above all, The Tree Of The Shadows stands out. The line-up reshuffle, which sees as survivors of the original line-up only Villa and Brais, has been functional to the new course taken by Dantalion: the current vocalist Diego is almost antithetical to the predecessor Sanguinist, stylistically oriented to dsbm, showing an excellent growl, while appearing less convincing in the clean parts and, at the same time, the other two new arrivals perform their task without smears. The final result is a nice work, obviously with a reduced innovative component, with which the Galicians are placed in the wake of Helevorn and other bands that are bringing the Spanish doom scene to emerge in an overbearing way in recent years. What they may have lost in terms of sound peculiarity, Dantalion have gained in immediacy without losing that taste for dark and melancholic compositions that distinguished them in their previous incarnation. Despite the objective goodness of this work, I end up regretting the band that was able to propose that intriguing mix of dsbm and gothic doom that fascinated me so much in Return to Deep Lethargy. However, we must take note of the fact that today’s Dantalion are basically another band, neither better nor worse, simply different.

2014 – Sleaszy Rider Records