So finally I get around to talking about Death, the Floridian gods who inspired a generation (or more) of extreme music fans and musicians. As most know (certainly all metal heads), the mastermind behind the band, Chuck Schulinder died a number of a years ago. As tragic as that certainly was, this entry is about the music he created — specifically on the album Symbolic.

must first give entire credit for this entry to my good friend Mr. Renkse. Without his recommendation I may not have looked further into tonights contribution and really missed out.

Antony and the Johnsons are a perfect example a band people absolutely love, or absolutely hate. There shall be no inbetween. Understanding their music, their aesthetic, even their vocals have often been described as “challenging”. On one side are the critics, who for the most part utterly praise the album (it won the Mercury award, among others). On the other side are the fans, who either follow in worship or who are dizzy with distaste. The fans of the album rage the disbelievers can’t see the dark beauty, while the non-fans refuse to be convinced.

There have been several occasions over the past month or so I’ve felt ready to give up on dark dose. I feel I don’t have the adequate time to contribute to make regular updates and allowing the blog to go a week without any contribution is awful. Then every once in a while, I get a wonderful e-mail from some quiet soul who has been reading dark dose all along and takes their time to let me know. Getting such e-mails rejuvenates my me desire to go on.

Tonight’s contribution is proof that you can always be surprised by artists or bands you had previously given up on. Green Carnation is a band from Norway whom on paper always sounded like a project I would enjoy. Despite a fleeting moment or two on their “Light of Day, Day of Darkness” CD, I have not found this to be the case. As a result, I marked Green Carnation as a band that is not for me.

As far as I can remember, I haven’t contributed any black metal to this mp3 blog as of yet. The main reason: I don’t really listen to it much (if at all) anymore. Back in the mid 90s, between the ages of about 16-20, things were different. While I was never a huge fan of many Norwegian black metal bands (with a few exceptions), I seemed to eat up most of the Swedish variety. Mid 90s Swedish black metal tended to be much more melodic and polished, something I have always been a sucker for. Not only that, 95% of them were mixed and produced by Dan Swanö, so you could always count on a great production. One album from this breed was “Tusen år har gatt…” by Mörk Gryning.

Before listening to tonights dose of the dark, please read this post to put it all into context. Several weeks ago, I traveled to Washington D.C. for my grandmothers memorial service. My cousin, sister and I were traveling in the same car as we drove to hour or so drive to where the service was held. My cousin had his ipod hooked up to the car stereo and while furiously searching for something to listen to blurted out, “Have you guys heard of Roky Erickson?!”. None of had. Before presenting us with the album he gave us Roky’s background — it went something like this: