Darkspace - Cosmic black metal

I have seen the dark universe yawning

Where the black planets roll without aim,

Where they roll in their horror unheeded,

Without knowledge, or lustre, or name.

(H.P. Lovecraft, “Nemesis”)

Switzerland's Darkspace came together in 1999 as a trio of mysterious identities. The only musician with a known past is Tobias Möckl, the sole member of the ambient black-metal band Paysage d’Hiver: there he went by Wintherr, while in this project he opts for Wroth (wrathful) and takes up the first guitar. The second is played by Zhaaral, while bass duties fall to the trio's only woman, going by the code name Zorgh. All three contribute to the chaotic vocals, so distorted and buried in the arrangements that it's hard to tell who's singing what.

The musical creature born of the three can lay claim to a place among the most extreme black-metal bands of all time. It's not, however, merely a matter of power, speed or ferocity, since theirs is a less obvious kind of aesthetic extremism, built on a monolithic musical choice. Inspired by science-fiction culture and fascinated by outer space and desolate cosmic wastelands, Darkspace have built an entire career paying tribute to the universe and its immense emptiness. In depicting it musically, they've laid bare a plain truth: the cosmos is, above all, made of death, solitude, emptiness and darkness. Having steered clear of the satanic and misanthropic poses struck by many of their peers, Darkspace have thus defined a central subject for their work, showing the consistency of true believers. The links to cinematic landmarks like “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Alien” help clarify what kind of vision of the extraterrestrial runs through their work.

The sound of these boundless spaces, inhospitable to life and unexplored, is a black metal steeped in strong atmospheric suggestion, which nonetheless shuns any folk or ambient inflection, rarely intertwining with melody. The atmospheric component is instead soaked in dark, anguished, dissonant and unsettling soundscapes. The harmonic and melodic constructions recall noise more than popular music. Even in terms of sound, the band displays an impressive degree of absolutism: precise aesthetic references, mainly rooted in the black-metal scene, alternate with austere passages that converse with the grimmest cacophonies. There's little room to stray from this rigid template, delivered to the listener with punishing perseverance.

The “form” is no less extreme, given that the compositions are often colossal not only in sound but also in length: 7 tracks across the 76 minutes of the debut Dark Space I (2003), 3 tracks across the 54 minutes of Dark Space II (2005), 79 minutes for the 7 tracks of Dark Space III (2008), 64 minutes for just 3 tracks on Dark Space III I (2014). Mile-long tracks, mammoth albums and a severe sound that rarely lets the listener breathe. It's a trial for the eardrums and the psyche, a plunge into the cosmic abyss that demands dedication and courage.

Their uncompromising aesthetic is also well expressed through the artwork, all dominated by black with few distinguishing elements, and through the titles of songs and albums: every composition is simply catalogued as “Dark” followed by a sequential number and an indication of the record it's taken from. Since the albums are numbered in sequence, “Dark 1.4” is the fourth track of the first album, “Dark 2.9” is the second track of the second album, and so on. This seems to suggest that it's actually one single, colossal, immense album made up of a suite in numerous parts. In terms of arrangements, the approach is decidedly atypical: instrumental passages and the deafening guitar sound dominate, with bass and drums rarely rising to a primary role. The rhythmic dimension so dear to black metal is pushed into the background, making the whole thing feel even more inhuman. The vocals, extreme and unintelligible, are worthy of the darkest black metal, a concentrate of pain and suffering that is scarcely ever comprehensible.

Darkspace have done for black metal what Khanate did for doom: a point of no return, the extreme reference point for mapping out the boundaries of the darkest, most harrowing music. Comparisons with other cult atmospheric black-metal acts like Wolves In The Throne Room and Alcest feel out of place; the more credible parallel is with the esoteric, terrifying sound of the monster tracks by Deathspell Omega.

The abyss of deep space: Dark Space I and Dark Space II

Dark Space I (2003) is a first, shocking plunge into the blackness of the galaxies. The 8 minutes of “Dark 1.1”, with guitars at outrageous volumes driving the charge, leave the listener disoriented, then stunned by “Dark 1.2” (12 minutes), a funereal pace with psychedelic froth, a grim cosmic hallucination. The former also features a sample of HAL 9000 from “2010: The Year We Make Contact”. There's no let-up in “Dark 1.3” (12 minutes), a concentrate of deafening black metal that closes in a magmatic, terrifying orchestra of hallucinated distortion, amid a raging sonic carnage. The track's close is an alien mass worthy of Schulze's threnodies. “Dark 1.4” (10 minutes) brings in an almost techno drum-machine beat, another disorienting element amid the apocalypse of arrangements, but closes with a mighty war march.

At several points, the record seems to outdo itself in violence and visionary scope, set alight by a visceral extremism. “Dark 1.5” (13 minutes) is a deadly guitar assault that erupts into gusts of violence bordering on harsh noise. As if it had exhausted its terrifying charge, the toxic cloud of cosmic debris and death seems to slowly drift away in “Dark 1.7” (12 minutes).

As rarely happens, one gets the impression of having reached one of the outer limits of this music's aesthetic and musical possibilities, as if in a deafening colossus like this one, long and exhausting, every possible atrocity had already been spent. In its monolithic consistency, Dark Space I certainly suffers from repetition and bloat, but perhaps it doesn't deserve to be weighed on the scales of variety and heterogeneity: rather, it's an extreme work with an equally uncompromising sound, one that effectively conveys boundless landscapes and unspeakable sorrows. Lost in the cosmos it has always longed to conquer, man finds himself surrounded only by death and solitude: it's the nightmare of space conquest translated into the language of black metal.

Dark Space II (2005), rather than pulling back, pushes even further, offering just three tracks, two of them past the twenty-minute mark. "Dark 2.8" (24 minutes) exploits this further dilation to depict, all on its own, a journey into the most aberrant, lifeless cosmos: after a couple of minutes of introduction, slashing guitar riffs raise the tension and open onto the cosmic symphony that follows, slow and majestic, driven by a beat that even recalls the motorik of kraut-rock. After 8 minutes, an icy, deafening wind rises, the guitars seem to speak unfathomable, horrible languages; an extreme, harrowing black-metal unspools as far as the eye can see, only slowing after the eighteenth minute, detonating before the twenty-first, and then slipping slowly into the infinite interstellar void. "Dark 2.9" (10 minutes) serves as an atmospheric interlude, but it's made of radioactive miasmas from stellar explosions, certainly not melancholy melodies: the guitars lead a desolate, unsettling symphony, while alien voices speak incomprehensible languages. "Dark 2.10" (20 minutes) carries on their extreme mission, standing out for a finale entrusted to grim dark-ambient touches. Worth noting are a few samples taken from the film "Alien".

Dark Space II can't claim the surprise factor of the debut, and despite being 22 minutes shorter, it gives the impression that "Dark 2.10" is largely superfluous, unable to add much to what's already been proudly restated with die-hard extremism in the other tracks. "Dark 2.8", however, might be the masterpiece of their career: 24 minutes that distill an extreme aesthetic into one colossal track.

Dark Space III (2008) is an album that takes the more obvious path: rather than seeking out more violent sounds or replicating what was already heard on the first two releases, it attempts more varied compositions. There's greater room for atmosphere, anguished and visionary, but very few concessions in terms of accessibility. Even when melody surfaces, it's dissonant, funereal, epic and never soothing. "Dark 3.11" (11 minutes) pulls off the impossible feat of making a black-metal spasm move over an extremely slow doom dirge, orchestrating it all like a deafening symphony. It's the more melodic guitars that lend poetry to this slaughter, as in the coda of "Dark 3.12" (11 minutes), full of mystery.

"Dark 3.13" (12 minutes) features a terrifying slowdown in its finale, worthy of an extreme-metal anthology: in just a few minutes it bridges the gap between harsh-noise/black-metal and the brutal riffs of Slayer. "Dark 3.14" (11 minutes) avoids even accelerating, so postcards from other galaxies emerge from the folds of the arrangements. "Dark 3.17" (17 minutes) uses a similar trick, with its long atmospheric coda.

Although weakened by an excessive length (79 minutes), Dark Space III too deserves a mention in the history of extreme metal.

Dark Space III I (2014), with the refinement of even skipping IV in the name of an extremist, minimalist aesthetic, is the first album in 6 years. It recalls the immense compositions of Dark Space III, but with the attention to atmosphere of Dark Space II and a few new touches of electronic music. "Dark 4.18" (27 minutes) has a devastating kick drum that propels an opening worthy of the most imposing apocalyptic symphony. Slightly more intelligible, one can sense this time some division into parts within the suite; rare, chilling melodies stand out, as do the imaginative variations across the crowded vocal landscape (growls, screams, effects) and the arsenal of shattering guitar riffs. It stands as the worthy heir to "Dark 2.4". "Dark 4.19" (18 and a half minutes), with its more linear rhythm, reveals an influence only intermittently felt in "Dark 4.18": an industrial-metal structure that channels the energy into solid, armored geometries. In a rare, almost unique occurrence, a frenetic guitar melody stands out clearly both in "Dark 4.19" and in "Dark 4.20".

By their standards it's a more accessible album, but it retains the ability to transport listeners into unexplored, indescribable, alien territories through extremely violent fusions. An accessible starting point for new listeners, who will nonetheless need the willingness to throw themselves into an unfathomable cosmic maelstrom.

To return to the scene they would wait a whole decade. Dark Space -II (2024) offers a single 47-minute track. The reasoning behind a title that seems to place the composition before everything the band has produced so far, as ever extremely laconic, is unclear. In practice, however, the Swiss band's massive sound here veers toward industrial-metal, with synths and drum machines playing an important role, in a way already heard on the demo Dark Space -I (2002; reissued in 2012). Unusually free of extreme rough edges, the Swiss outfit's return after a decade away doesn't always find the variety and creativity needed to justify a forty-five-minute composition, but it's hard not to praise its ability to evoke hostile, perversely fascinating spatial landscapes. Within their discography, it's a lesser album nonetheless, repeatedly threatened by tedium, one that would have benefited from a leaner structure.