DARKEND hails from Italy, has been around since 2006, and produces some exceptionally nuanced Black Metal. Although they identify as Extreme Ritual Art, many call them Symphonic Black Metal. To tell you the truth, based on what I read about the band from various reviews, interviews, and promotional materials, I thought I would flat out hate this band. Regardless, I tried to approach the band and their latest release, "Spiritual Resonance," with a degree of objectivity.

So let's start off with listing my reservations. First, the moniker "Extreme Ritual Art" comes across as pretentious. A group of musicians get together and produce music - this is what we call a band. Maybe there's some theatrics and ritual enactments during live performances or maybe even during recording, but still a band. "Extreme ritual art" suggests shamans with paint brushes riding BMXs. Just my uninformed view, I know, but there you go. Second, the names. Made up names have the connotation of characters and play acting. Third, Symphonic Metal. Really? Can't exist. At this point you have to imagine that DARKEND would have to offer something spectacular to get me over these objections.

Now let's get on to what I discovered when I actually gave "Spiritual Resonance" a thoughtful listen. To begin with, I love the song titles. This pissed me off, because I wanted to dislike everything about this band. Titles like "The Three Ghouls Buried at Golgotha," "With Everyburning Sulphur Unconsumed," "The Seven Spectres Haunting Gethsemane" are absolutely intriguing. Just reading them compels me to want to hear these stories. And the great thing is DARKEND does indeed tell the stories, and not just with their lyrics, but with the music itself. Each song is carefully arranged to match the music with the mood, which in turn progresses the storyline.

From the very first notes of "The Three Ghouls Buried at Golgotha," which is actually a meditative, sonorous hum of sorts, to the melody from a haunting Hammond organ, I was set off balance. I was expecting a cacophony of noise and instead I got harmony and melody. This of course quickly dissolves into a proper Black Metal carnage of riffs and gutturals, but that in turn shifts into epic arrangement and so the dance continues to the end of the track. Seven and a half minutes later I was left sitting there wondering what the hell just happened, and then track two kicked off.

Track two, "Scorpio Astraea High Coronation," has a marching cadence layered with the familiar Black Metal tremolo. Animæ's vocal styling, though guttural, is articulate and more congruous than grating. This is a riveting tune and ranks as one my favorites. Another favorite is track three, "With Everyburning Sulphur Unconsumed," featuring guest vocalist Lindy-Fay Hella from WARDRUNA, who gives a stunning and memorable performance. By the time the Hammond shows up again along with a killer bass solo by Vinterskog, well, let's just say I was rethinking my assumptions.

I won't give a track by track review, but suffice it to say that every track has its own appeal and raison d'etre. I did, however, want to call out the final track, "The Seven Spectres Haunting Gethsemane." The first four minutes and some odd seconds is what you would expect based on the preceding five tracks-well orchestrated and nuanced Black Metal with over or under tones of Symphonic. And then the brazen discord ends on a long sustained power-chord and the piano drifts in, and then the symphonic, and then the distant vocals just over there but not quite present, and then the rain. Well played, DARKEND, well played.

What did DARKEND and "Spiritual Resonance" teach me? One: there really is such a thing as Symphonic Black Metal and DARKEND is it and it is damned good. How could two more unlikely musical styles be combined? Symphonic Metal is like that Mexican candy that's all sweet on the inside but covered with lime, salt, and hot pepper on the outside and is so incredibly wrong that it's good. Two: sometimes our biases can prevent us from experiencing some essential things in this world and maybe that's what spiritual resonance, as a thing as well as an album, is meant to reveal.