On April 24, 2007, Deleyaman played live in Yerevan, Armenia. For most of us, that’s not exactly the closest show to catch. However, as someone who travels to Yerevan about twice a year for work, this was an amazing coincidence and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. So, I filmed it to share with the Dark Dose audience.

April 24th is Genocide Remembrance Day, a national holiday where the country shuts for a day to remember family lost during the Armenian Genocide. It’s quite overwhelming; the city is filled with long, somber faces and events commemorating the tragedy. Even the weather matched the mood, snowing after weeks of 70+ (21C) degree weather.

Sorry for the more-than-a-month absence, finding the required free time for a post is a challenge. I’m back with March’s only dark dose entry, but it’s one that deserves a month all to it’s own.

Lycia is a band friends and strangers have been telling me about for years. For whatever reason, I sometimes neglect to follow-up on music recommendations for years at a time.. and end up regretting it. Judging by the album “The Burning Circle and Then Dust” — which was originally released in 1995 — this is one of those times I regret my delay. The song I’m posting tonight is an incredible concoction of the ethereal weightiness of Fields of the Nephilim, the inescapable sorrow of Shape of Despair and the beautifully floating shoegaze of Slowdive. The moody atmosphere is as thick as it gets — melt into the melodic sea of hauntingly beautiful darkness that floats your way at 1:31.

Last May I wrote about Deleyaman after being tipped off to their existence by a dark dose reader. Several months later, while out on tour, Deleyaman mainman Aret Madil actually contacted me about the post and expressed interest in my band as well. Wow. This band continues to impress me on so many levels.

The 3rd and the Mortal. Norway has never had a shortage of highly experimental metal bands and The 3rd and the Mortal were no different. Their debut album “Tears Laid in Earth” pushed about all the boundaries you could think of at the time. The album wasn’t afraid to tenderly explore all corners of melancholy and held no limits to the amount sparse effected clean guitar and meandering leads as they saw fit. To top it all off, The 3rd and the Mortal were one of the first bands in the European scene with a female vocalist (many bands including The Gathering claim them as an influence). While the bands early material was often described as ‘doom metal,’ it’s clear their approach was more from the Pink Floyd direction than any classic metal bands.

About 2 weeks ago I moved to Los Angeles, CA to live, work and escape cold weather. It’s been sunny and hot the whole time I’ve been here, but for some reason I can’t get enough grimness into my ears. Funeral doom and mid-paced black metal don’t really fit the abundance of palm [...]

Tonight’s contribution comes courtesy of Corwin, a dark dose reader with apparently musical taste that align with mine. My knowledge of the artist he contributed did not exist prior to being introduced a week ago. Nevertheless, the two or three songs I’ve managed to get my hands on have thoroughly impressed me to inquire into obtaining one of their albums, as it’s undoubtedly something I will enjoy.

Formerly known as Legend of the Sleeping River, Run With Wolves was discovered by Jesse on the late mp3.com This project came into existence by Giampaolo Caprino, but I just learned a couple months ago, that “members of Novembre” had participated. I’d be curious to know which ones!

Italy’s Klimt 1918 are one of those bands whose name I’ve remembered seeing floating around, perhaps partially because it’s such an odd band name. I briefly checked out a track from their latest album “Dopoguerra” and wasn’t drawn in enough to investigate any further. Last week, an aquatence of mine brought them up in an email convesation and recommend I look into their first album, entitled “Undressed Momento”. Not the best album title I’ve ever heard, but I decided to check it out soon after anyways. What I heard was enormously more interesting to me than what I heard on their latest effort. In the past week I’ve found myself playing the album several times a day.

When main song writer Kim Larsen split (among others) from Denmark’s Saturnus, I was not happy. As I’ve previously stated, Saturnus was one of my favorite bands in the late 90s. They released two incredible full lengths as well as an EP of romantically tinged melodic doom metal. I certainly considered them one of the top bands in the scene from the time and had hopes for much more material.

A strange domino effect of events lead me tonights contribution. I was watching an incredible BBC documentary on the life of Jeff Buckley (whose music I adore and find it hard to believe I haven’t contributed a song of his yet). In this documentary they talked to Elisabeth Fraser, ex-member of the legendary group Cocteau Twins. She basically revealed that, for a period of time, she was Jeff Buckley’s girlfriend. He would fly over to the U.K. where she lived and spend time and her to the U.S. For whatever reason, I found it fascinating that Jeff Buckley had a relationship with a vocalist of Cocteau Twins.