DAARCHLEA - Suns (2014)
As most of you might know by now, I rarely update my blog nowadays. I have succumbed to the hectic schedule of life and could no longer pay attention to this blog. The last past was way back in 2013 for god sake.
Having said that, the other day, I managed to get my hands on Daarchlea's full lenght debut titled Suns and holy crap, was I in for a bloody surprise. First of all, I have to make it clear that I have an uncontrollable intolerance for metalcore, deathcore and all that modern metal crap. Nothings wrong with the music, its just not my cup of tea. When I was active promoting Malaysian Metal a couple of years back, I never gave those local bands that, unfortunately, fell under the metalcore banner, anytime of day, because, you know, why should I? And back then, to my ears, Daarchela fell under that banner. I ignored them. I hated their old kelawar/butterfly from afar logo too. Hahaha
A couple of moons recently, a metal blogger friend of mine asked me to go and check the band out. I hesitated because, you know, Daarchlea was a typical deathcore band so why should I. Haha. A few weeks later, I stumbled with the bands new ambigram logo. I sensed something different in the air. Just for the sake of it, I went and liked their facebook page and cought wind that the band was writing and recording Suns, their full lenght debut. They put up a teaser and guess what, it sounded heavy, scary and dark. The type of sound that can give you nightmares. So, yeah, I kinda anticipated the album, just to see how it would turn out at the end.
Theyve finally released the album a couple of weeks ago and I finally managed to get my hand of them yesterday. Holy fucking crap, the album is brilliant. I cannot stop shaking my head while blasting the album full blast on my way to work. This is just brilliant. Everything, from the song writing to the music production were top notch. I said to myself, I gotta update my blog and talk about this album. This needs to go huge. Fucking huge.
Daarchlea is a blackened deathcore band hailing from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Suns, their highly anticipated (and rightfully so) debut album, contains 10 songs. There are Dusk/Midian era Cradle of Flth evilness in there, some Dimmu Borgirs, Deathcult Armageddon epic clean singing in there (to me, the whole album sounded like a 30 minute extension of Progenies, with less orchestra) and in some songs, you will find the presence of Norwegian black metal style riffs were thrown in as well.
Everything is top notch, especially the sound. The guitars were heavy, crunchy and with the right amount of warmth. The drums (which im always particular of) was brilliantly mixed, the snare sound was magnificent (woody, the way I like it) while the toms and bassdrums were perfectly mixed. Decent solos here and there and lastly the star of them all, the keyboards. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. On top of it all, the vocals. You got the typical low growls and high pith shrieks and the clean singing. The vocals can sing. The harmonies were pitch perfect.
I have to applaud the music arrangement, dude. Kudos to the band for crafting the songs beautifully. Trust me, this will end up being an instant classic. This is a sublime album. If I were to define this album with only one word, that word would be SINISTER. Fucking SINISTER. Get this album, support the band, tell everybody about them. This is a local product thats worth your support. The band needs to push this album for international circulation, like big time. Daarchlea, bloody hell.
Contact the band via their facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/daarchleaofficial.
