Do you remember the rebirth of thrash/death made in sweden in the end of the nineties? All started with the great debut of The Haunted, continued with the promising works of Soilwork and Carnal Forge and, last but not least, the icing on the cake: “Rusted Angel” of Darkane. Then the necessary and fast decline: The Haunted died with the arrival of two bad replacements, Carnal Forge soon turned into the caricature of themselves, Soilwork fell into the trap of the commercial temptations, stuck in a flavourless middle way. And Darkane? Darkane probably are the single band among those to have maintained their dignity whole, succeeding in keeping unchanged their strong identity but without limiting in repeating the same thing over and over again. And all, and that’s important, with an average quality level which is impressive, and not only according to the present standards. “Insanity” (a partially disappointing album in the words of the band itself) turned towards a more thrash approach, “Expanding Senses” was even more straight and heterogeneous, and now this “Layers of Lies”, which though keeping the catchy refrains of the previous albums finds shelter under the bigger complexity and brutality of their debut. Is that due to the need of some style certainty or of digging an outlet to their frustration, after the years of forced inactivity due to the health problems of their drummer Wildoer? Who can say, what matters is “Layers of Lies” is the fourth perfect consecutive album. The Swedish fivepiece links the best of the two happiest decades of metal: the technical, complex and heavy thrash of Dark Angel and Mekong Delta (these latter also recalled for some symphonic experiment) with the rhythmical freeze of Strapping Young Lad and Fear Factory, followed bands also for the alternance between raw and clean vocals. If then you also add the structured riffing according the Carcass’ “Heartwork” school and the melodic death of At the Gates and Dark Tranquillity, then the game is done…though without forgetting the metal classicalness of the solos, refreshed also by the curious instrumental “Maelstrom Crisis”. In front of such abundance it makes no sense to mention a song instead of the other, even if generally speaking I tend to prefer the second half of the album, among which the masterpiece “Decadent Messiah”. Darkane, for who hasn’t noticed it yet, own all what can please a metal fan of respect: great technique, personality, variety, strength, epicness. If now it finally comes the good luck too, then here you are!

Fulvio Adile