Germany’s Skady return with their third album, When Sun Disappeared, after several years of silence. The album is a first part of a space-themed trilogy, which was recorded and mixed at the Rosenquarz Studio. It gets released the digital way by the band itself (digital), but apparently there is a CD-edition too via Metallic Media (hey pals, are you still in touch?). The album consists of nine tracks and lasts for fifty three minutes.
When Sun Disappeared stands for a specific form of Nordic-styled and Second Wave-oriented Black metal, yet with an approach that touches the current Atmo-Black current, including a certain modernised Shoegaze / Blackgaze-approach. With the latter, I am referring especially to the permanence of transcendental / atmospheric / hypnotic / spiritual leads that sort of characterise most of the excerpts on this album. They do not dominate the whole album, but I think it’s quite an impressive part of the whole that gets led by these leading guitar pieces.
But there is more than those leading guitar riffings, for the splendid production pays tribute to the greatness of other players too within this game: fabulous drum parts (truly, it’s like the better progressive percussionist has been hired to create an own aural journey), nice bass melodies (just listen, and undergo…), heavy rhythm guitar patterns, sore screams, melancholic acoustic intermezzos and much more… In general the whole is quite atmospheric, and I am not referring to some poppy kind of sweetness, yet to the intriguing and attractive definition of this trend. Despite the lack of being original / renewing, the inspiration and conviction are positive elements, and so is the superb sound quality, getting rid of trendy over-production, yet focusing on primal strength and sound. And furthermore, one cannot label this stuff as varying, yet still Skady try to search for a certain diversification in between the different pieces, and most tracks indeed come with a diverse structure, including quite some variation in both speed and structure. Anyway, it makes me looking out for the next part(s) of the trilogy for sure!