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Religiously and mystically, the number ‘7’ has always had a strong symbolic meaning (God created the universe in 7 days…including 1 day off, 7 angels with 7 trumpets will announce the apocalypse, etc, etc…). “Darkest White” is Tristania’s seventh album and although it’s not divine, it goes pretty damn close.

 

First observation is that vocally, Tristania have really upped the ante. Kjetil Nordhus gives a great vocal performance – his ‘clean’ singing sounds emotional and angst-ridden. Kjetil’s female counterpart, Mariangela Demurtas, sounds sultry rather than operatic. For sure her singing is more expressive than in “Rubicon”, the band’s previous album, and songs such as ‘Number’ and ‘Requiem’ have her in particularly good form. Even guitarist Anders Høyvik Hidle provides some top-notch Black-Metal-style vocals.

 

“Rubicon” wasn’t a bad album but I feel that “Darkest White” is far more superior, the songs have greater emotional depth, the level of musicianship is more pronounced and you get the feeling that Tristania aren’t trying to be an entity that they are not. The songs aren’t overtly anthemic or loud but there’s a lot going on, musically speaking, and that was something I appreciated.

 

Another asset of this album is the production, which really seems to be serving the music (and not the other way round). It’s not too polished and yet it gives space to the songs’ numerous subtleties. Credit here goes to Christer André Cederberg, who started his career as a musician with Norwegian avant garde metal band In The Woods…, which happens to be a band I have a huge admiration for. As a producer, Christer recently worked on Anathema’s superb “Weather Systems” and, truth be told, it’s easy to draw parallels between that album and “Darkest White” although the latter is much heavier.

 

Adorned with a stunning artwork, “Darkest White” is a classy album that I happily recommend.

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