Endless Dark

Artist: 
Album Title: 
Endless Dark
Release Date: 
Monday, June 3, 2013
Label: 
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Review Type: 

On the international Rock and Metal scene, Iceland may be but a small player which only very occasionally spews forth new bands, but as a rule they all make it onto the markets abroad (the local market being typified by an abundance of Folk bands), and fare pretty well in the process. For Reykjavik based newcomers Endless Dark (a septet consisting of singers Viktor and Rúnar, guitarists Atli and Gummi, keyboardist Egill, bassist Keli and drummer Rúnar) things may very well go that same way!

Actually hailing from Olavsvik, the band apparently was founded in 2009 (or at least, that's when they took on a facebook page) as a sextet (second singer Rúnar was apparently added later). With an average age under 20, they made a huge impression at 2010's Iceland Airwaves festival, and immediately got a confirmation to return the following year. They were then contacted by the X-Ray Touring agency, whom got the band on a number of European festivals during 2011. Along the way, they also got picked up by British management agency Volcanic Media, and have gotten down to a studio to record their first EP.

The band's music is described as being “Post-Hardcore” and as “...a dramatic hybrid of powerful heavy guitars, retro-ish keyboards with a perfect mix of clean and aggressive vocals...intensive rhythms and drum fills makes the music constantly evolve and exciting, but at the same time never lose its heavy roots...”! Well, to me that sounds like a dandy way to describe what most of us would have labeled an Emocore act, some 15 to 20 years ago (seems like today one is almost afraid to use that term), but I'll admit that the words were chosen well! They're also ot quite completely true, because on the 5-track EP we find this very nice piano ballad entitled “Awful Place”, which is stylistically definitely a stone's throw away from the band's “heavy roots”. It's also a duet with a female singer which is not mentioned in the info sheet we got along with the download promo of the album. She's also not mentioned anywhere on the band's facebook or ReverbNation pages (they're actually a copy of each other relating the same info ànd audio file for the track “Creature” and video for “Cold Hard December” - both are on the EP). The band also has a MySpace page, but I was unable to open that on the network PC I used to find the above info on (very possibly, or not, there's more info, or audio, there?).

For your acquaintance with the band, surf to (www.) facebook.comendlessdark, (www.) reverbnation.com/endlessdark, or (www.) myspace.com/endlessdark. You can also follow the band on twitter (link on facebook page), and the album can be gotten from either Amazon or iTunes.

89/100