Review: Dark Sarah – The Golden Moth

The Golden Moth is my introduction to the band Dark Sarah, a band that hails from Finland and that is making cinematic metal, as they themselves like to call it. Upon listening to the album for the first time I have concluded that that is a very suitable term for this type of music. The intro track Desert Rose makes it very clear that this band is telling stories with their music. And that is not really a strange thing because The Golden Moth is the third part of a trilogy. Where Desert Rose served as the buildup track, Trespasser continues and creates a straightforward, no nonsense metal track with heavy guitars, very tight drums and transcending vocals. The vocals are very important on this album if you ask me. The voices of the two singers Heidi Parviainen and JP Leppäluoto are very complementary to each other and this helps to create a more immersive storytelling experience through the music. When these two people start to sing, they lift every song to a higher level. Even though I usually am not a fan of theatrical male vocals, it really doesn’t bother me on this album because the quality is just outstanding and it feels like the vocals belong together. You can hear the cinematic influences on this album very good as well. The collection of added noises and sounds, like the howling of the wind or the presence of a subtle keyboard, add to the idea that you are really present there like you would be when watching a great immersive movie. If you listen to the first ballad on the album, My Beautiful Enemy, then you can hear how beautiful Heidi Parviainen can really sing. Not only does she have a great vocal range but her voice also has a beautiful color and sound. On top of that she is really capable to tell a believable story. The same goes for JP Leppäluoto for that matter. It almost seems like both of them attended musical school before they started making metal music. I already said that I don’t like theatrical or very schooled vocals, but in this case, I think it suits the music very well. This is mainly because they really do it at a 100% and therefore it doesn’t feel like a gimmick or a trick but it just serves the music! This way I can really respect it. The song I Once Had Wings is another one that really stands out. This song starts out quiet and almost a little comical, comical being the word that is best to describe the undertone of this whole album. In some ways you can compare the song to Ayreon’s Loser, but later on this song becomes very bombastic and cinematic again. The battle–like song Sky Sailing to me is a true power metal song at heart with again beautiful vocal lines by Heidi Parviainen.

For me the song Wish is maybe one of the most important and most beautiful masterpieces. This song would easily fit a high-end musical on Broadway. Musically this song is absolutely phenomenal and it absolutely blew me away! But I can understand why a true seasoned metalhead wouldn’t like this song at all. However, I would have to point out that I did not listen to the other two albums from this trilogy so I cannot determine if Dark Sarah used this style in their earlier music, but my guess is that they did because this is the third part of the trilogy. The song fits the album perfectly if you listen to the album as a whole and this certainly is one of my favorite tracks.

The biggest and most bad-ass track on the album is of course The Gods Speak with guest performances from Marco Hietala of Nightwish and Zuberoa Aznarez of Diabulus In Musica. These two added voices make an already beautiful song an even better song! This song serves as the ultimate soundtrack for every movie fanatic and it’s also a fantastic song for all the music lovers out there because, let’s face it, it sounds absolutely amazing.

To sum it up, The Golden Moth from Dark Sarah has everything you could wish for but if I am going to dissect this album even further I would rob you from the pleasure I guarantee that you will have when listening to this album!

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