If I were to tell you off hand, that this band has two members of the legendary Hardcore outfit Pro-Pain in its midst (namely bassist Gary Meskil and rhythm guitarist Marshall Stephens), what type of music would you expect this band to play? Well, you would be quite mistaken there, I daresay, because what Darhaus brings is a relatively commercial type of Syth Rock!
You see, at the basis of this project/ band sits/ stands one Rupert Keplinger, songwriter/ guitarist/ keyboardist/ bassist known from his collaborations with the likes of top selling German artists such as Peter Maffay and Eisbrecher, with “lesser” music gods such as Drai, Jasmin Wagner, Der W, Rock statt Rente, Hopeless?, and did small things (writing one song, of contributing guitar to such a song) for the bands Patrick Nuo, Wirtz, Christian Venus, Laith Al Deen, Kissin' Dynamite, and even Oomph!...as well as handling guitars on the complete album of the soundtrack to Hand Auf's Herz (2011), bass, guitars programming on the 2010 album Popstars On Stage...and contributing guitars to Pro-Pain's 2008 album No End In Sight! In 2011 he and Gary Meskil got their heads together and started synchronizing their ideas about the project, Keplinger taking care of the music part (eventually contributing lead guitar and keyboards to the recordings) and Meskil taking care of the lyrical side of things (plus, evidently, contributing his bass playing). As you already know, the band turned to Meskil's bandmate Marshall Stephens to fill in the spot of rhythm guitarist. Keplinger from his side attracted German drummer Paul Keller (only info I found on this dude is that he's been recording engineer/ producer of German Metalcore band A Plumbers Nightmare's 2012 EP Medea, released through Torn Flesh Records), and eventually the founding duo chose for Scottish singer Kenny Hanlon (also singer of the Rock/ Indie band Chase Saturn, who plan to release their debut album somewhere in 2014) to front the band. Funny detail, a singer by that same name, was frontman for the Scottish NWoBHM band Glory Hunter, who only left us the 1979 single Thoughts Of Destiny before splitting up. Most certainly nót the same dud, because from the pictures I've seen he doesn't seem old enough to have been more than a toddler back at the end of the '70s!
The music this quintet brings took long enough to get recorded, considering when the project started, but there it finally is. Prior to its release, the complete album was actually made available for free streaming through Soundcloud, but that was for a limited time only, and therefore you'll have to make due with the videos posted in the “Media” section of the band's own site (www.) darkhausmusic.com. If your thing is Synth Rock with a great singer (Hanlon has a slight nasal touch to his voice, which also sets him apart from the run-of-the-mill), dó check out the band. Meanwhile, the original project turned into an actual band situation, with live dates already done in late November (at the special invitation of Unzucht, Darkhaus supported the latter on 3 German gigs), and December 29 sees the band play as direct support to Eisbrecher. Actual touring comes in April of next year, when the band supports Subway To Sally on an extensive German tour. Oh...and, before I forget, besides the 14 regular tracks, our download promo also included two bonus tracks, the first being an Eisbrecher re-mix of the track “Breaking The Silence”, from which all guitars were excluded to make it the perfect Dance Club single! For his “mix” of the album opening “Life Worth Living”, Kinky J was a little more inventive, adding synth sounds (but also cutting the guitars). Stuff for the dance floors!