Although a brand-new entity, Darkened host a wealth of experience in the death metal underground. The band's opening salvo is truly a sum of all its not-inconsiderable parts. Short but most definitely sweet, the four-song/16 minute 'Into the Blackness' is all-caps Death Metal of a cool and cruising and above all Crushing aspect. Imagine the stately, steely pulse of later Bolt Thrower or the subsequent Memoriam, a smattering of gutted doom ala Disma or spiritual kin Funebrarum, and dusted with the classy melodicism of A Canorous Quintet and successors This Ending, but all done with a touch that's somewhere between comfortably familiar and subtly unique, and you have the sum total charm of Darkened. However, the strength of this unit is their songwriting, and 'Into the Blackness' possesses such in spades - and they're only beginning.
1) Into the Blackness ()
2) The Offering ()
3) Darkening of My Soul ()
4) Unredeemed ()