...SIŁA I PIĘKNO MUZYKI TKWIĄ W JEJ RÓŻNORODNOŚCI


..::OPIS::..

Spotkałem się z wieloma opiniami, że ostatnie dzieło Diabolical Masquerade nie dość, że jest najlepszą płytą zespołu, to jest jednym z najlepszych albumów reprezentujących ekstremalną odmianę progresji. Znając jednak pierwsze trzy płyty i nie będąc specjalnie zachwycony nie wierzyłem tym opiniom.
Po przesłuchaniu płyty mogę się zgodzić z powyższą opinią jedynie połowicznie. Rzeczywiście jest to najlepsza płyta sygnowana logiem Diabolical Masquerade. Nie jest to jednak płyta, która w jakiś szczególny sposób zwróciła moją uwagę. "Death's Design" to jednak wielka ponad 40-minutowa suita podzielona na szereg pomniejszych utworów. Nie raz spotykałem płyty o podobnym charakterze i szczerze powiedziawszy wszystkie były lepsze od tej. Blackheim dalej hołduje wypracowanym przez siebie schematom. Jest więc nowocześnie, ale klimatycznie i ekstremalnie. Trochę mniej tu naleciałości w stylu Dimmu Borgir, ale za to mamy powrót do monotonii i powielania się. Nie pomaga nawet cała masa smyczków. Wiem, że albumy tego typu mają właśnie to do siebie, że mają klamrowy charakter i jakiś motyw przewodni zazwyczaj je spina, ale wydaje mi się, że tutaj za mało się dzieje, aby słuchacz dał się ponieść.

"Death's Design" to płyta poprawna, a nawet niezła. Nie zachęciła mnie ona jednak do kolejnego sięgnięcia po nią i póki co nie widzę inicjatywy ze swojej strony aby to się zmieniło.

Harlequin


An album that is as unique as it is amazing. Metal first, but highly innovative and diverse. Death, black and clean vocals, mellow and metal parts, electronic in moments, this album contains a wide spectrum of metal and prog landscapes. The quality of the songwriting is undeniable, and the execution is as good. The quantity of information here is phenomenal, so quite a few listens are recquired in order to digest it all. This album is not for the fainthearted, but the adventurous will be greatly rewarded. Truly a masterpiece, one of those one-of-a-kind albums you rarely come across (perhaps once every ten years).

Melomaniac


In 2001 Diabolical Masquerade, unfortunately, released their last EVER release. This was the magnificent "Death's Design". Comprising over 60 tracks, this release simply has to be inventive and progressive in order to keep the listener's attention. And believe me Blakkheim has succeeded in that perspective. The songs vary from very melodic black metal songs, albeit mostly without the fast drumming, to little 70s symphonic rock suits.

"Death's Design" was considered to be the official soundtrack to a horror film that never saw the light of day. The music here tells a story by itself, making the whole album feeling like a unique experience and in a way, a sort of musical journey.

Parts of songs are reoccurring quite often on the album thus connecting the whole album with each other. This makes the conceptual presence even bigger. The presence of Dan Swanö is easily noticeable; he has this typical sound when he plays keyboard and guitar, you immediately recognize him.

Being a bit of a fan of progressive metal, this release simply cannot be missing in your collection. It is one of the few truly progressive albums I know and there's things for anyone to like.

Tristan Mulders


The side project of Katatonia guitarist Anders Nystrom, Diabolical Masquerade would take a much different direction than the man's flagship band. Whereas Nystrom's may be most widely associated with doom metal or depressive rock, Diabolical Masquerade goes for a theatrical take on avant-garde black metal. Culminating in the project's final record, it is a shame that Diabolical Masquerade disbanded before a fifth release, but it is difficult to imagine a greater swansong from the band than this. With a host of classical musicians and guest artists taking part in 'Death's Design', Diabolical Masquerade has fashioned an album here that is every bit as ambitious as the other great albums in progressive metal. Self-styled as the soundtrack to some non-existent horror film, 'Death's Design' is a massive journey, every bit as cinematic as it is made out to be.

Although 'Death's Design' is split into a ridiculous amount of tracks, it is essentially one sprawling epic, much in the way of Edge Of Sanity's classic 'Crimson'. Think the black metal aspects of a band like Emperor fused with Opeth's melodic sensibilities, with the added vastness of a string section to give Diabolical Masquerade even more firepower. The first thing that arguably stands out about the record is the sheer amount of tracks it has, and this unnecessarily indulgent separation of what is otherwise a running piece of music may be the album's greatest flaw. With some tracks only being six seconds long, the sheer wonder and bewilderment as to why Blakkheim would have chopped up his masterpiece so haphazardly. From the perspective of listening to 'Death's Design' as a start-to-finish experience however, this does not affect the enjoyment, and it ultimately the only way one can go about listening to the record.

In terms of mood, things are very dark, but in a fairly different way than the sort of introspective darkness that Anders' band Katatonia conveys. Instead, the dark mood here is foreboding and very ominous; perfect for whatever imaginary film that this album could score. The entire album is tied together by a narrative and recurring musical themes; much like Edge Of Sanity's 'Crimson', once again. Most of the time, these ideas flow seamlessly from one another, each bringing a new dimension of fear or beauty to the album. Sometimes though, it does feel like Blakkheim and company forgot to add a transition here and there, or that some of the existing transitions could have been polished to lubricate the flow of the music. The musical ideas are almost constantly impressive however, so it is fairly difficult to let these minor flaws get in the way of the enjoyment.

Diabolical Masquerade has blown me away with this masterpiece of an album. Expect great things from this.

Conor Fynes


I love this album and never get tired of it because it has a taste of everything. It's like a party tray with a variety of different kinds of snacks, each with their own flavor and just the right amount.

The variety I am speaking of in this album is the levels of harmonies and extreme black metal throughout the 61 tracks of short tid bits of musical delight. You don't have too much of anything. The right amount of heavyiness and melody is spread out from begining to end. There's experimental noise, jazzy or melodic solos, upbeat rock, dark atmospheric metal, haunting melodies that will leave you breathless, and black metal.

At times, the album sounds like straight up horror movie suspense music, the kind you hear in a movie where the zombies or whatever are approaching and at others could be a beautiful medley, the kind you hear when the hero of a movie saves the day or comes to the rescue. The singing is mostly blood curdling vocals. Dan Swano's voice sometimes comes up in some tracks, it's beautiful and eerie at the same time, kind of like a Disney movie ballad from hell. The album is unique and perfect in it's own way with the oddly timed tracks, you don't get sick of anything cause everything is divided precisley short, the longest track is about two minutes.

The music sounds like it came out of a movie because, if you didn't know yet, it is an actual soundtrack to a film that unfortunatley was cancelled in production due to another movie with the same concept coming out, that movie was Final Destination, which you could say "stole" the whole concept of "death's design". The exact words, "death's design" were said in Final Destination, coincidence or blatant rip off, you be the judge.

I really wished the movie Death's Desgin was made, each track on this brilliant album was planned to be synchronized with each movie scene as the film would progress, hence the different moods and atmospheres the music creates to enhace the visual aspects you would view. Good thing the album was still made regardless of the movie never seeing the light of day......for now. The fate of the movie is still up in the air, but not sure if the album will still be used for it.

If you love this album, I'm sure you'll also like Sigh. They play a similar experimental black metal. Try listening to Sigh's Imagianry Sonicsacpe album if you haven't already. The style of music is quite similar to this. Dark at times then very beautiful and epic the next.

Megafury



..::TRACK-LIST::..

- 1:st MOVEMENT
1. Nerves in Rush (0:06)
2. Death Ascends - The Hunt (Part I) (0:15)
3. You Can't Hide Forever (0:23)
4. Right on Time for Murder - The Hunt (Part II) (1:31)

- 2:nd MOVEMENT
5. Conscious in No Materia (0:39)
6. A Different Plane (0:21)
7. Invisible to Us (0:40)
8. The One Who Hides a Face Inside (1:09)

- 3:rd MOVEMENT
9. ...And Don't Ever Listen to What It Says (0:56)
10. Revelation of the Puzzle (0:57)
11. Human Prophecy (0:20)
12. Where the Suffering Leads (0:18)

- 4:th MOVEMENT
13. The Remains of Galactic Expulsions (0:11)
14. With Panic in the Heart (0:22)
15. Out from the Dark (0:45)
16. Still Coming at You (0:29)
17. Out from a Deeper Dark (0:28)

- 5:th MOVEMENT
18. Spinning Back the Clocks (1:42)

- 6:th MOVEMENT
19. Soaring over Dead Rooms (2:18)

- 7:th MOVEMENT
20. The Enemy Is the Earth (0:35)
21. Recall (0:13)
22. All Exits Blocked (0:34)
23. The Memory Is Weak (0:11)
24. Struck at Random / Outermost Fear (0:19)
25. Sparks of Childhood Coming Back (0:27)

- 8:th MOVEMENT
26. Old People's Voodoo Seance (1:24)
27. Mary-Lee Goes Crazy (0:32)
28. Something Has Arrived (0:15)
29. Possession of the Voodoo Party (0:46)

- 9:th MOVEMENT
30. Not of Flesh, Not of Blood (0:50)
31. Intact with a Human Psyche (1:02)
32. Keeping Faith (1:06)

- 10:th MOVEMENT
33. Someone Knows What Scares You (0:29)
34. A Bad Case of Nerves (0:50)
35. The Inverted Dream / No Sleep in Peace (0:16)
36. Information (0:16)
37. Setting the Course (0:52)

- 11:th MOVEMENT
38. Ghost Inhabitants (0:49)
39. Fleeing from Town (1:01)
40. Overlooked Parts (0:50)

- 12:th MOVEMENT
41. A New Spark - Victory Theme (Part I) (0:48)
42. Hope - Victory Theme (Part II) (0:59)
43. Family Portraits - Victory Theme (Part III) (0:35)

- 13:th MOVEMENT
44. Smokes Starts to Churn (0:08)
45. Hesitant Behaviour (1:35)
46. A Hurricane of Rotten Air (0:18)

- 14:th MOVEMENT
47. Mastering the Clock (0:54)

- 15:th MOVEMENT
48. They Come, You Go (2:10)

- 16:th MOVEMENT
49. Haarad El Chamon (0:19)
50. The Egyptian Resort (0:34)
51. The Pyramid (0:23)
52. Frenzy Moods and Other Odditites (1:09)

- 17:th MOVEMENT
53. Still Part of the Design - The Hunt (Part III) (0:17)
54. Definite Departure (0:36)

- 18:th MOVEMENT
55. Returning to Haarad El Chamon (0:45)
56. Life Eater (0:32)
57. The Pulze (0:27)
58. The Defiled Feeds (0:36)

- 19:th MOVEMENT
59. The River in Space (0:56)
60. A Soulflight Back to Life (1:18)

- 20:th MOVEMENT
61. Instant Rebirth - Alternate Ending (0:05)



..::OBSADA::..

Diabolical Masquerade:
Blakkheim - rhythm (lead) acoustic and midi guitars, ambiances and vocals
Dan Swanö - Keyboards, ambiences and lead guitar solo on 'Keeping Faith' plus keyboard solo on 'A Hurricane Of Rotten Air' (Session musician)
Sean C. Bates - Drums and percussion (Session musician)
Ingmar Döhn - Bass guitar (Session musician)

The Maalten Quartet, Estonia:
Artieer Garsnek - violin #1
Jaak Gunst - violin #2
Heiki Schmolski - violin #3
Elmo Meltz - viola

Other Personnel:
AAG (Dag Swanö)[1] - Guitar solo on 'Possession Of The Voodoo Party', 'Frenzy Moods And Other Oddities', 'They Come, You Go', 'Still Part Of The Design - The Hunt (Part III)' and 'The Defiled Feeds'
Patrik Sesfors - jazz guitar on 'Overlooked Parts' and 'Mastering The Clock'
Konstantin Uweholst - cello
Jaari Fleger - grand piano




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-s577-hx5U



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