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Dark Suns is a progressive metal band from Germany. They have had several successful tours with Pain of Salvation, from whom they borrow their bass player. Grave Human Genuine is the band’s third release. This disc finds the band grabbing onto the sound that they have been experimenting with and taking it to a whole different plane. The band promises complex metal and atmospheric soundscapes, which it delivers with great bombast.

Grave Human Genuine is filled with heavy guitars, pounding percussion, melodic keyboards and many tricky time signature changes. Throughout all of this, the one thing that Dark Suns manages to do the whole time is keep the songs feeling natural and organic. This is not the cold, calculated progressive metal that some people have come to expect. This is a whole different level.

The opening track sets the tone very nicely with a droning keyboard quickly followed by crashing guitars and relentless percussion. The music bobs and weaves through many different moods while still maintaining continuity. Dark Suns are a band that could easily split into its respective halves and still pull it off successfully; they could easily release an ambient disc and then follow it up with a scathing metal disc and neither would suffer.

Dark Suns is on to something with where they’re going. One can only hope that the journey continues.

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Reviewer: Dave Warren Added: April 3rd 2008