Dark Fortress - Ylem

February 8, 2010

Reviewer: Jesse

Dark Fortress is a difficult band to rate.  They’ve been one of the most consistent bands over the past decade in terms of albums but inconsistent in direction, and each Dark Fortress album has been a departure from its predecessor.  Sometimes it’s a drastic change like when Stab Wounds was released only a year after Profane Genocidal Creations, where they switched from a keyboard-heavy style to a more grim black metal sound.  Other times it isn’t such radical change, like Séance to Eidolon, but the point is that they’ve never created much of an identity in the black metal genre as the style they transition to on each album is something you can compare to a multitude of other bands.  The thing that Dark Fortress can claim is that they do it better than just about every other band they might seem to be mimicking.

This time around, Dark Fortress has released their sixth full-length album, Ylem, in which they have adopted a much slower pace and that sort of comes across as a blackened doom album, seeing them step as far out of the box as they ever have.  You’d think that after this many albums, they would have latched onto a certain style at some point, but not just yet.  They’ve again managed to venture down another untraveled road for them.  As mentioned, Ylem uses a much slower speed and fuses it with a “black ‘n roll” approach that makes for some extremely catchy songs full of headbangable moments.  They touched on this slightly on the last album with the song “Baphomet”, but here we have a near full album of this.  The guitars are given much more room to showcase themselves here than I can remember on any other album: from fast, high-pitched picking to lead solos and a concerted effort have the guitars stand out and not just be a fast rhythm section.  I’m not saying that there are tons of wanking solos or anything, just that with this slower style, the guitars were going to have much more room to breathe and they knew it and adjusted. 

One standard of any Dark Fortress album is that it’s going to be long, and that’s no different with Ylem.  In fact, it’s their longest album to date at just over seventy minutes.  Only twice have they released an album under an hour and both of those were over fifty minutes.  Dark Fortress is no slouch in the studio and go in there looking to finish the job and not to see how quickly they can get out.  I think this is the one time where album-length is their enemy though as this album definitely drags on after about five songs or so, but those first five are clearly winners in their stockpile of songs.  “Osiris” will contend for their best song ever written.  It’s an epically catchy rocking and dark song full of staccato double bass that reaches an amazing crescendo toward the end of its seven-and-a-half minute frame.  It’s songs like these that make me want to worship the ground that Dark Fortress walks on and wish that they could put that one perfect album together just chocked full of “Osirises” and “Baphomets.”

In time, I’ll probably just regard Ylem as another Dark Fortress album, but in those instances where I do dust it off, I’ll be reminded of the kind of talent these guys have.  Hopefully by then, they’ll have released an album that makes the name Dark Fortress more known that it is now.

Release Date: February 9th, 2010
Label: Century Media

TRACK LISTING

1.  Ylem
2.  As The World Keels Over
3.  Osiris
4.  Silence
5.  Evenfall
6.  Redivider
7.  Satan Bled
8.  Hirudineans
9.  Nemesis
10.  The Valley
11.  Wraith

Total playing time: 1:10:16

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