Customer Reviews

Darzamat: Live Profanity

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Darzamat is a band from Krakow that some people insist on comparing with Cradle Of Filth. News : while some of the musical elements are shared, the end result has little to do with the brit band and their sound, which is way denser and non self-indulgent or compromised in any way, is very much their own. Double bass-drums, 5 string bass and keyboards are the only similarities.

They have dual vocals; main singer is Flauros, who has a very black-metally delivery, and female vocals are handled by the gorgeous Nera. The latter are mostly choruses and weird noises she makes with clean and gruffed vocals that are far from lyrical as is the case in bands like Lacuna Coil. They're much harsher and darker.

Now on to the dvd itself. Main feature is their set at Metalmania 2007 (42'). The performance is tight and intense and despite the nice widescreen picture, multi-camera shots and a fantastic lightshow the filming is not totally spot-on. The camera is rarely where the music would call for, esp on the fretboards. The guest rhythmic guitarrist and the bassist get very little exposure, but the overall result is OK, with a sharp an nice picture and a near-perfect sound, dynamic and well panned across the stereo image, lacks a lot of bottom end if played without a sub, but is perfect through a decent one, and the kick-drums are tuned very dry.

Bonus material :

The second gig, at the Weinachstrum Fest in Germany on the same year (28'), has a muddier sounding, more keyboard oriented setlist and a third singer on some of the songs, with no guest guitarrist to beef up the sound this time.It is edited using sepia and bluish chroma effects for enhancement since I believe the actual lighting was very sparse in that little club- The atmosphere is very intimate and the band is not that focused on making their set sound as extreme as in Metalmania .The bottom end is rounder now but at the expense of the rest of the drum kit.Cranking up your treble control brings everything else to life OK.

The 3 videoclips have good sound but are mostly live with some filming interspersed but more than OK for a low-budget underground band. They exhibit some compression artifacts but that was to be expected from a DVD 5 with that much material in it.

There is an informative half hour interview with the band and a 20' funny backstage footage that includes soundchecks and other things. We also are handed a coupla audio-only tracks that are well.....OK to check the band's studio sound if you're interested. There rest are just your standard Metal Mind's weblinks, screesavers, bans bio and discog and the like.

Conclusion : An honest but somewhat rushed effort that tries to compensate quality with quantity, but sure to please Darzamat die-hards and give metalheads who (like me )had not heard of the band before a good overview.