It has been three years since the last SARKE release, although each of the members seem to have been quite busy with their own various projects. On June 21, released their eighth full-length studio album, “Endo Feight.” It’s a diverse collection of tracks, sampling the wide range of styles they’ve explored over their 16-year tenure.     

SARKE has always been somewhat economical with their offerings, typically coming in at eight to 10 tracks and rarely extending past 40 minutes. “Endo Feight” maintains that trend, weighing in with eight tracks across 36 minutes. There’s no extra fat on this album, apart from some spoken word moments, just lean muscle stitched together with tight sinews and wrapped around a wiry skeleton of Black, Thrash, and Doom Metal.    

Standout tracks include “Macabre Embrace,” a Doom headstone that caps off the album, complete with a thunderstorm and a warbly piano that sounds a lot like a church bell; the eerie “Abyssal Echoes” showcasing some fine guitar work by Steinar Gundersen as well as some dark acoustic hollows; and “In Total Allegiance,” an angry fistful of Blackened Thrash that breaks out into a wall shattering charge at mid-point.

The album also features stunning cover art by Kjetil Nystuen. It depicts a circular clock frame nested in a dead tree with a disarticulated skeleton clutching the 8^th hour position. Also suspended in the clock’s carcass are the fugitive ghosts of shattered cogs and in the distant background sinking into the fog is the band logo. Suitable for mounting this one.

‘Endo feight’ translates to “I am going to fight” in Latin. Against what? Pick your battle. You can fight against death, against the cosmos, against time—In this day and age there’s no shortage of struggles. And with SARKE there is no shortage of well-executed, well-produced dark metal. They are constant as the evil of man and persistent as the decay of time.