Northern Irish band Darkest Era have been active for about fifteen years, in the course of which they have released three ep’s and three full lengths, all of which have been very well received critically, and this is not surprising given the goodness of their latest album Wither on the Vine, released a few months ago. The style offered by the British band can be considered a kind of doom with very epic and folk-like veins; In particular, in this latest work, the emphasis given to the various tracks makes Darkest Era appear as a sort of heavy metal version of other illustrious islanders such as Primordial. This is also due to the vocal interpretation of Krum (Dwayne Maguire), who proves to be a fine singer, being able to maintain rather high tones without ever being cloying, and always managing to be interpretative and appropriate to the emotional touch that is given to most of the tracks. The eight songs on the album total around three quarters of an hour in duration, a perfect amount of time with which to develop a complete work, devoid of smears and without weak points; in fact, it is difficult to find one song better than the other, and already listening to the opening One Thousand Years of Night is indicative of the level that will always be maintained until the concluding title track, even if they actually emerge for greater usability, however not in such a pronounced manner, songs such as Floodlands, not by chance chosen as the introductory single, and Tithonus, but in general there would be little to add about an album of this kind where Darkest Era reach the state of the art in this particular sonic segment. On the other hand, it is not trivial to be able to offer a sound that can attract indifferently those who are fans of the most extreme doom as well as those who are more oriented to listen to more classic sounds; Wither on the Vine is a work that, also thanks to the landing on an important label such as Candlelight Records, could push the band to obtain a well-deserved and wider consensus of audience.

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