The underground has produced some really interesting stuff lately and DARKER HALF's self financed debut album could be one of those little diamonds. At least that was my initial thought, since "Duality" was a bit far from what I hoped it would be.
The Australian act exists since 2005 as they say on their Myspace profile, but from what I found they had released a demo in 2003 (except if I didn't clearly understand something). Anyway, let's see what they can do in a full-length release and if this album will lead them to a contract in the near future.

The band claims to play a mixture of Heavy, Thrash, Power, Speed and Death Metal. Hmm, sounds pretty interesting, but unfortunately it's not that way. If you take a look at their influences you will see bands like JUDAS PRIEST, IRON MAIDEN and METALLICA, while also DEATH, NILE and STRAPPING YOUNG LAD! The fact is that these guys haven't even realized what the music they want to play is. "Duality" is more like a trash can that everyone threw whatever he wanted in rather than a solid structure. There are moments when you are listening to classic Heavy Metal, there are moments where you come across Thrash Metal parts, while there are also parts where all of a sudden the band's singer remembers he can also perform brutal vocals and there are blasts that hit you out of the blue! I don't know if they haven't worked on building up their sound or they just can't handle so many different elements.

DARKER HALF really need a lot of work on absorbing their influences and make them sound as a whole, rather than just putting the one after the other and tiring the listener who tries to understand what's going on! I will be waiting for the band's next release to see if these guys can really go somewhere with this...