Ah this takes us back to dark medieval times. Remember those photo shoots in the early years of black metal with people posing with swords and wearing armour in castles all with shifty looks in their eyes? They had to get things done on the quick before being chased out by custodians, tour guides or security shouting out “oi you great daft berks what the bloody hell do you think you are up to, get gone before I set the dogs on you” or the equivalent in German, Norwegian or possibly errr Welsh! Anyway Darkenhold look like such a band but let’s be serious as musically they deserve it and they do strike a good pose with cloaks and swords in their pictures.
I have encountered the band before due to their cover tracks on tribute albums to both Emperor and Enslaved but despite them having two full length albums prior to this it’s the first time I have given them a proper listen in their own right. Hailing from France where there are no shortage of castles the band have no doubt plenty of inspiration and literally batter straight into things on opener Strongholds Eternal Rivalry (which would be a great Dimmu Borgir song title). With the essence of said bands early work this settles into a very melodic fast paced romp which defiantly takes me back to that time that bands such as Satyricon and even Abigor were presenting themselves to a hungry horde of listeners. There’s some very nice acoustic fretwork here breaking up the feudal barrage and everything is played tightly and well-constructed with a big sense of purpose about it. Vocalist Cervantes roars and rasps and there’s a subtle keyboard which brings to mind Emperor mournfully sounding in the background. Having opened with by far the longest track on the album they reign things back a bit for the rest. They do pepper things with medieval atmospheres and not in any of that folky sort of way but proper authenticism amid the blackness. I am at times reminded of countryman Belenos and keep finding myself listening out for the clash of steel on steel or clattering of hooves over cobbles. There’s a pagan bravado over tracks like the gloriously entitled ‘Majestic Dusk Over the Sentinels’ and it’s stirring fist slamming, head banging stuff which makes you want to swig back mead and wassail in a rowdy way. There’s some epic sounding backing vocal harmonies here too, to spur further on the cause.
Of course you really need some horns parping away on an album like this and sure enough ‘Glorious Horns’ delivers making you want to put a film in with someone shouting out ‘storm the castle walls” (Game Of Thrones will do), the vocal rasps and pompous keyboards particularly spurring into action to defend or attack your position. A nice interlude at the half way mark sees a tubular bells sounding tinkering away atmospherically reminding of Mortiis a bit, no stranger to this sort of thing before he went all goff. I obviously should have studied French better at school ‘Le Souffle des Vieilles Pierres’ as I was totally wrong thinking this was an angry song about someone slamming the oven door causing a sunken cake disaster, apparently it means ‘Breath Of Old Stones’ and you can smell times past here (rather than burnt puds), a great bit of classical guitar fits in nicely with the sturm und drang.
On playing this a few times I realised that it has been a while since I have heard anything quite like this recently and it took me back to a time before everyone was trying to bend the rules of black metal and take it to the future. Castellum really retains the echoes of the past about it and does so in a way that sounds fresh and vibrant. It’s a stirring and evocative listen and as the atmospheric keyboards and booming timpani of last track ‘Medium Aevum’ bring it to a fitting conclusion it’s a battle I know I will be dipping into again before long.
(7.5/10 Pete Woods)
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