Darkened Destiny

Recently came to my possession an album from the old days. “Darkened Destiny” belongs to the scene of the Netherlands, it was recorded in mid ’90ies, released in 2001 and re-released in 2012 by New Era Productions. So, Tartaros were formed in 1992, they consisted of five members and after two demos and this full length album they split up. This album contains four Black Metal tracks and two introductions, lasting for about half an hour. The emotions that this album creates, are quite mixed, because at first the listener is impressed by the very beautiful cover, the imposing photos of the band and the overall artwork and he is expecting some forgotten treasure from the depths of the ’90ies. But then the introduction comes, which comes from the awesome film of Lucio Fulci, “House by the cemetery”, to land him somewhat abruptly as it doesn’t fit at all to what you would expect.

However, the music of Tartaros is not neither disappointing, but surely nor something impressive. In this album, the listener will come across four Black Metal tracks of mid and slow speed. The riffs are melodic, atmospheric and frozen. It looks like the biggest influence of the band is Celtic Frost to the point that some riffs are almost the same. The epic character of the riffs that reminds of mid speed Scandinavian Black Metal, makes the music more interesting. Generally their ideas are not bad, the greatest problem of the compositions though is monotony. All tracks consist of two or three riffs which are repeated throughout the track in the same boring mid – speed tempo. So although a lot of their riffs are quite interesting, that continuous repetition makes the tracks completely boring.

On the contrary, the instruments have a very good performance. The guitars have a distorted sound and they deliver the riffs with accuracy while they create that frozen,dark and ritualistic atmosphere, easily. The lines of the bass are not clearly audible but they fill the sound well. The drums are solid and fill the compositions well but their lines are somehow repetitive, while in the only fast track they transmit a feeling of uncertainty to the listener. The vocals are very expressing, powerful and intense Black Metal Demonic screams that they somewhat save the tracks by refreshing the interest of the listener. The production is clean and a little bass, it puts out a massive and somehow warm sound, while the mixture is quite balanced. The lyrics are written in English and they are contained in the cd, while they talk about battles of Satanic Hordes with man, darkness, pain and the martyr of life putting out a misanthropic attitude.

“Darkened Destiny” by a historic point of view it is a re-release that would surely interest all those who are searching or collecting everything released or composed during ’90ies by the Dutch or generally the European scene. On the other hand, I don’t think that it can motivate the interest of the Black Metal fans as it didn’t achieve to do so when it was released for the first time. All those of you who are searching the Dutch scene listen and buy the album. The rest of you prefer something else by this scene.