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DARK MILLENNIUM
Where Oceans Collide

Massacre (2018)
Rating: 9/10

Massacre Records is certainly a label that knows no boundaries with what it signs up and releases; over the years I’ve reviewed a lot of stuff from these guys, whether in the form of blazing Euro power metal to straight up traditional metal, on to black metal and back to folk-inspired metal and thrash.

And now we have Germany’s Dark Millennium, a progressive extreme metal act by design who formed way back in 1989. But after just two records – Ashore The Celestial Burden (1992) and Diana Read Peace (1993) – the combo split. Then in 2016 they made their welcome return, signalling their re-emergence with the opus Midnight In The Void, and now, two years later, we have the impressive Where Oceans Collide.

Dark Millennium is a band with a sound that is hard to pin down; imagine a rather stark and angular framework sneering with arrogance but offering abrasive shreds, scornful icy blasts, technical flourishes and an all-round scathing mix of black / death / thrash / doom metal. The band may have undergone a few line-up changes since their inception, but that’s never caused any sign of deviation as Dark Millennium again embark on dark, brooding, atmospheric passages mixed with sharp yet heavy and concise rumbles of swagger.

Where Oceans Collide is very much a potent record full of brisk, yet jolting rhythmic structures, pulsating yet frosty blasts of jarring progression and yet all enclosed within a fully mocking, confident and seemingly poetic casing; the band never slipping out of those humourless, moody and glinting constructions.

The vocals of Christian Mertens wouldn’t seem out of place on a Teutonic thrash record or a black-death composition such is their snarling cocksure attitude, forever remaining a grisly scowl. But the rest of the band – Michael Burmann (guitar), Hilton Theissen (guitar), Gerold Kukulenz (bass and keyboards) and Andre Schaltenberg (drums) – construct such massive steely passages as they rumble steadily through colourless monstrosities such as ‘Insubstantial’ with sauntering motion; this vast and superior build being one of very much modern design, displaying at times technical architecture that looms as each riff trudges with cosmic ease.

Indeed, the death ‘n’ doom metal flecks are all but fleeting. Instead, tracks such as ‘Lovers Die’ and ‘Nights, Eternal’ exist more so as examples of contemporary heavy metal which lives within a great Gothic shroud; the vocals acting as grimacing commandments to what are essentially spaced-out and glinting spectacles created by those cutting and efficient heavyweight riffs.

The doomy scenarios do emerge, but not as one would expect. Instead, Dark Millennium display huge angles, where the sound is one of clean machinery and minimalist appearance even if what is actually going on is far deeper. Imagine if you will some new structural creation; space age yet ice cold white. And that’s the feeling I get here as the band embarks onto thrashier climes with ‘Moving Light’, which wouldn’t seem out of place on one of those dynamic yet later Destruction or Sodom albums, such is the metallic menace.

Where Oceans Collide is a record sprinkled with some truly “out there” threads; from the peculiar aching doom-cum-black thrash assault of ‘Flesh Is Weak’ to the complex jarring of ‘Jessica’s Grave’ which also rattles with thrashy intensity. But there are grey surprises around every corner; ‘Diseases Decease’ is a straight up misery rocker featuring a typically melodic Teutonic chorus and then thrashy hammering, while ‘In Equilibrium’ makes sure the temperature drops even further as the track develops into a dark simmering abyss of hissing cymbals and cutting jolts.

Finally, album closer ‘Across Oceans Of Souls’ tinkles in poetic fashion. This one initially plays out with enough Gothic orchestration to put it in the soundtrack genre, and that’s where it stays. The track is a moody, menacing yet beautiful masterpiece of eerie chimes and suspenseful throbs to make sure that we sleep with the brightest light on. But of course, nothing can really save us from the cold icy grip that Dark Millennium has placed around our shaking necks.

Where Oceans Collide is very much a modern metal record, but one that stands head and shoulders above so many due to its natural shifts and unforced paroxysms; the whole grandiose and melodious pit of blackness somehow unorthodox in its mesmeric grace.

Neil Arnold

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