Much like ‘Esoptron‘ was a reflection of the mind found in Sotiris Vayenas, this is yet another glimpse into the darker musical side of Swanö. Moontower was recorded after Dan’s unpleasant departure from Edge of Sanity following the 1997 release “Infernal“. The song writing process derived motivation from complicated external (life) events, which turned the hardships into an object of resolving a suffering.

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.

Without a doubt, this contribution is going be the strangest and perhaps most bizarre yet here at Dark Dose. Surely none but the most open minded will have the slightest of interest. Of course, this fact is totally fine with me — perhaps it’s time to weed out the weak! In all seriousness, I admit this is a dramatically different contribution and — obviously — a story behind it.

There are some albums you can always count on pleasing everyone if you meet a random bunch of metal heads. “Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious” (Necroticism for short) is one of them. For some reason, all metal heads I’ve met (excluding younger kids) will happily bond and unite with stories of yesteryear under the influence of this album. While some (again, younger kids) may say there is “nothing special” in these songs, they are frankly ignorant that this was the trailblazer, not the newer bands or albums they may cite.

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.

If I had to list some of the most important albums that fundamentally shaped what I would love so much about Swedish and emotionally based metal, Tiamat’s “Wildhoney” would be on the list. When I listen to cohesive mass of music that is “Wildhoney” nowadays, I am incredibly impressed how ahead of it’s time it was. The melodically lush, mellow and heavily Pink Floyd influenced metal just didn’t exist or was in extremely rare form in 1994 — the year “Wildhoney” was released. Together with albums like “Tales From the Thousand Lakes” by Amorphis, “Dance of December Souls” by Katatonia and “Orchid” by Opeth, “Wildhoney” was blazing new ground.