SATYRIAN – The Dark Gift

Before reviewing the disc at hand, it’s best to take a look at the band itself: Satyrian is basically a Gothic band which released their first album on Lion Music in 2006 called Eternitas, quite an outstanding release within the genre with very strong melodies and remarkable songs. Before that, they were called Danse Macabre and published several more albums on different labels. Members are German and Scandinavian, although the band base seems to be Germany. Their style is bombastic Goth/Pop that one can dance to with three vocalists for the male clean, male grunted, and typical female Goth vocals. Keyboards and programming are important ingredients of their music, which makes them probably difficult to digest for the traditional Metalhead.

One needs a little information to understand the EP The Dark Gift as it contains no new songs, but only remixes from Eternitas. Remixes are not very common in Metal, and so it is no surprise that this release only scratches the genre. But, for the open-minded music fan, it contains a few very interesting and entertaining tracks, so if you consider yourself among the said target group, read on.

To sum up their style on The Dark Gift, this is probably the recipe: Take 30 percent of Sundown, 20 percent of Lake Of Tears, add 10 percent Therion, and the other 40 percent are made of equal parts of Eurythmics, Pet Shop Boys, and Depeche Mode. Spice with hints of Sentenced. Stir.

The seven remixes are made by three different persons, and they make all the difference as the songs in their original version are all very good:

Remixes by Roman Schoensee (The Dreamside): “Invictus” and “The Dark Gift”

Roman’s remix of “Invictus” is easily the heaviest song on The Dark Gift, as it is the only one with a heavy riff. He isolated the guitar sound, put it much more into the front, but other than that, he fails to make much of an impression. The album version feels more mature, more complete. With his version of the “Dark Gift,” this impression is even stronger. The dance beat is catchy and nice, but fails to recapture the most important part of the track, which is the fragility of the female vocals in contrast to the driving drum beat. The new rhythm is too dominant and breaks the delicate balance that makes the album version so enjoyable.

Remixes by TmV (Shade Factory): “Eternitas” and “The Dark Gift”

TmV approaches Satyrian’s style from the Electro side, which suits the songs well. The increased pace of “Eternitas” and the reduced bombast carve out the profiles of the individual instruments without being dulled by layers of background keyboard sounds. This is even more audible in his version of “The Dark Gift”: his remix is minimalistic, and also over a minute shorter than the album version. The opulent chorus is stripped naked, and reduced to its mere necessities, revealing its multi-melodic character in the process.

Remixes by Örkki (Satyrian): “Fall From Grace,” “No Tears, No Embrace,” and “Ewigkeit”

The only one with three remixes is a member of the band. It strikes as odd as the original sound should have reflected his preferences already. So it does not come as a surprise that his remixes, apart from being two dancefloor versions of the originals and a laid back, fittingly called chill out remix of the song “Ewigkeit,” retain the general character of the album versions.

In total, three of the remixes are excellent and can stand in line with the originals on Eternitas — that is what the band wanted, that fans see The Dark Gift as an add on to the album –- namely “Eternitas” by TmV, “Fall From Grace” by Örkii, and “The Dark Gift” by TmV. Two more are good, and two are definitely inferior to the album versions: “The Dark Gift” by Roman Schoensee and “Ewigkeit” by Örkki. So there is light and shadow on this EP, and it would not have hurt to have more different songs rather than three times “The Dark Gift” (the third is the original album version added to the end of the EP), but it is an interesting experiment and definitely worth to try, unless dancefloor beats give you the measles.