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News from the house of DARK MOOR. "Between Light And Darkness" is the title of a new 8 track CD, which marks the end of an era, the last recording with singer Elisa C. Martin and guitarist Albert Maroto, who left the band (or was she left?) not long ago. And it is not a regular album either, but we get four purely acoustic songs, plus the Japanese/Korean bonus tracks of the "The Gates Of Oblivion" album and the Japanese bonus track of "The Hall Of The Olden Dreams" plus an orchestral version of the track "Dies Irae".
Now releases like this always have a certain touch to them, as it if it was only done to fulfill a contract or something, but "Between Light And Darkness" is an EP that just happens to be a whole lot longer than regular albums of many bands, but that just as a side note…
The four brand new acoustic tracks cannot deny a certain almost medieval touch in them, also through the use of harp, flute, violin, viola, cello and piano, and they show a side of DARK MOOR that we have not really had a lot of on their regular albums, which all had been very interesting and very good Power Metal with female vocals. And this side is something very interesting and has a very basic and natural feel, because it puts the song into the foreground, without any bombast or anything and which also shows that DARK MOOR is more than the epic Power Metal that they are known for.
Just take the excellent "From Dawn To Dusk", where also the singers of fellow Spanish band ARWEN (also label colleagues) lend their voices to create a kind of majestic atmosphere. And in a song like "A Lament Of Misery" Elisa also shows us that she has a powerful voice that is a very nice change to the sopranos that we are treated with oh so often within the realms of Metal.
And the three bonus tracks from the Asian market are all with the full instrumentation, where especially the more than 10 minute long "The Fall Of Melniboné" stands out, a pity that it had not been contained on the original, European, version of "The Hall Of The Olden Dreams", but then again, it came out as a separate EP in 2001, which I do not have, but still, it is good that these songs have been unearthed and made available to the rest of the world as well as they do not represent any big drop off to the regular album tracks - and if you know those albums, then you also know that they had been very good already!
A new singer is found, but it remains to be seen, if he actually will be able to fully replace Elisa, WHITE SKULL had the same problem when Federica De Boni left them, but only time will tell… Until then "Between Light And Darkness" is a worthy release to gap the time, so get it, folks! (Online June 8, 2003)
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