Darkher – Realms


 

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The Kingdom Field (Prophecy Productions), the 2014 EP from West Yorkshire project Darkher, was at once a thing of beauty and a powerful thrum evoking the bleak moors surrounding the culturally fertile English county. Those fortunate enough to have sampled that release have hankered for an album ever since and thankfully, with Realms (Prophecy Productions), that day has come.

The Chelsea Wolfe-esque intonations of project founder Jayn H. Wissenberg arrive early in second track ‘Hollow Veil’: brief opening segment ‘Spirit Waker’ eliciting more of those Wuthering Heights-styled atmospheres. Possessing a fuller and more expansive sound than previously, exquisite drum patterns and sparse yet heady riffs crash into the swells whilst Wissenberg’s blissfully harmonic, touching voice laments in the foreground. Harking back to earlier material, the gentle acoustic of ‘Moths’ and the gorgeous ‘The Dawn Brings a Saviour’ is shot through with a sinister yet Folksy Americana: the cello and guitar growing and groaning under the dreamy harmonies before a suspenseful, protracted explosion brings the former to a pounding, tense climax; the latter maintaining its unutterably tragic feel throughout, its moving coda both harrowing and uplifting.

Despite the fluid, spiritual nature of the music, the introduction of the various flavours is perfectly orchestrated: the marching ‘pad’ of drums into ‘Wars’ breaks a period of ethereal drone which could have shrouded the second morning of The Somme; the ensuing noise a mix of delicate fury and agonised grace; the time switches of a wonderfully emotive song judged to perfection and creating an optimum sense of drama. A similar air of foreboding leads Wissenberg’s light, spectral melody into ‘Burial Pt. 1’ which segues effortlessly into the funereal, grief-laden strings of ‘…Pt. 2’ before it too bursts into brief, shuddering life. “I’ve died a thousand ways”, breathes the protagonist, and you bloody believe it.

The barely tethered emotion flows serenely into penultimate track ‘Foregone’, the only repeat from that 2014 EP and arguably its standout moment. It’s another Wolfe-soaked, brooding mass which aches with raw emotion: the vocal that of a gravely injured angel cursing her attacker, the track possessed by the ice chill of twanging chords and ominous march of drums, the howling midriff delicate yet effectively tugging at the heart. Closer ‘Lament’ in some ways belies its name, the rhythmic acoustics and gently gambolling lullaby lilt giving a slightly more up-tempo feel of All About Eve’s ‘Martha’s Harbour’: yet, when that chorus hits, your heart will involuntarily rip apart.

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Spent, battered and broken in the softest way, you’ll emerge from this experience not knowing quite where you’ve been taken, yet desperate to return despite the melancholy it left you with. Quite simply this woman oozes genius, eliciting emotions that shouldn’t be attainable to a stranger and doing so with an absorbing, Doom-laden yet wonderfully attractive caress. An utterly beautiful record, Realms is a modern-day classic.

10.0/10.0

PAUL QUINN

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