Date at Midnight – self titled EP review
We have a really powerful deathrock strike from Italy, called Date at Midnight. The debut EP was released last year, but the band’s musicians got experience in their previous projects, what makes this debut cause doubts if it’s possible to call Date at Midnight a young band, especially with paying attention to their mature sound. The EP begins with two, in my opinion, the most powerful, catchy and hit band’s songs, “A Story so Old” and “Lost in Kreuzberg”, then moves to two slow and obscure tracks “Waiting for…” and “Date at Midnight” which I can’t call the band’s strong point, because these songs sound too oppressive and it reflects on a listener and swells the emotions. And the finishing tracks, “Walking afterlife” and “Crucifying my lies” are “a new wake” for this EP, not so driven and more moody than the first couple, they also have the necessary dynamism to make a sense and be caught by memory.
In common, the EP sounds very deathrock, and it also has its gothic side, it’s obscure and mysterious. Every band’s member work is remarkable. Guitar sounds very self confident , bass is active and catchy, drums are driven and powerful. As for the vocals, there’s a “cheer” to the vocalist’s previous band “Interior Deus” in which his vocals were a duel between deathrock and Niphilim-like gothic rock. So, in Date at Midnight deathrock exactly wins, but gothic rock elements suddenly may appear in the voice, and in this band it sounds incredibly great. I got a real pleasure to listen to this EP, because it’s one of the best contemporary examples of playing deathrock, which is well balanced between professionalism and offbeat approach.
Grade: 9/10
Pall ‘Nattsol’ Zarutskiy
‘Grave Jibes Fanzine’
