NÖRTHWIND from Northern Spanish Gijon released two very good epic Power Metal albums, them being “Viento Del Norte“ and “Chronicas De Aravan: El Retorno Del Rey“ via Goi Music, before they unfortunately broke apart. At first one half re-appeared under the banner of VENDAVAL, self-titled, also via Goi, with a Power Metal album that was not bad, but nothing special either.

Why I chose this introduction? Well, in the mean time the other half of NÖRTHWIND is active again as well, under the banner of DARKSUN and I approached their debut “El Legado” with some reservations, after my experience and the high hopes for VENDAVAL. As chance has it, this album, too, is released by Goi Music, these musicians seem to really like this Basque label (or the other way around).

Surprisingly the album’s first track “Intro“ is a very epic, well, intro, but after that I almost fell off the couch, because with the title track DARKSUN present us best epic Power Metal with very well implemented keyboards and the excellent vocals of guitarist Dani G. Suárez, which fit into the music in a very harmonic way, with nicely varying tempo and big, dramatic chorus (not too dramatic, though), great start out fort his album!

The two following tracks offer a bit less spectacular, yet still very strong epic Power Metal, borne by the strong vocals and the very well used keyboards, also benefiting from the very clear and powerful production of Dani G. Suárez himself and guitarist number two Tino Hevia, as also proved on the following “A Donde Van Las Almas”, a bit more dramatic, rising towards the chorus, epic, but never overblown, very good, especially as despite the keyboards they always keep a good heaviness inside the songs and let the drums drive forward! And as opposite to that right after we get the nicely unsappy ballad “El Último Viaje“…

And they won’t let off, “Corazón De Dragón“ is a dynamic, fast, great song that takes you with it, keeping you on the edge until the end (with ANGRA’s Kiko Loureiro as guest soloist), this way Power Metal is a whole lot of fun, no matter how much people might complain that I like too much Power Metal, as long as bands such as DARKSUN belt out such killers I won’t stop with it either!

NÖRTHWIND without a doubt had been one of the best Spanish bands and with DARKSUN they now have found an absolutely worthy successor, which for sure will not revolutionize the Metal world, but should definitely satisfy every Power Metal fan, for me one of the genre highlights of the past year! (Online February 10, 2005)