Darkend
Viaticum
'Viaticum' flows out from the Sacred Spaciousness beyond duality, enshrouding its Silent Nature with the voice of ancient ceremonial chants, dungeon synth ambience and sulphur riffs engraved on arcane metal patterns. Combining shades that span from Mercyful Fate to Dissection ('An Incautious Exhumation Of What Lies Beneath Forgotten Ground') and from Dead Can Dance ('In Your Multitude') to Arvo Pärt ('In My Multitude'), the album enlightens an immersive and cathartic pathway towards the deepest hidden fields of who we really are. Darkend is the band fronted by Animae (also guest vocalist for Gaahl's Wyrd on various European festivals and venues). After rather humble beginnings mostly inspired by orchestral extreme metal, Darkend developed a quite peculiar artistic style blending black metal patterns, ritual ambience, dark classic metal riffs and solos in the vein of Mercyful Fate/Angel Witch and a ritualistic, hypnotic vibe explicitly created in order to generate a deep sonic and spiritual transcendence.