After a flurry of releases in the late 90s Greek melodic death metal band Dark Vision originally had a more blackened sound apparently, but their slapdash release rate has meant only one full length in 2002 and three EPs since, including this one, means that Dark Vision are likely to be absent from the people’s minds or thoughts when it concerns up and coming underground metal bands.

The band is attempting to stand out by stating they have rock ‘n’ roll influences in their music, which may be true in their interpretation but my interpretation is far different. The marching drum intro is tribal like a call to war to form an intro that sets a reasonable scene for opener “King Of Emptiness” whose pace is slow and melodic but unfortunately hardly ambitious and barely memorable. The band does like to add perpendicular riff changes and tempo changes, as the song veers from death and black schizophrenically. “Pain Redirected” offers what I suspect is the bands reference to rock ‘n’ roll influences with a death ‘n’ roll style riff beat that is actually quite catchy and possessing a bizarre old 70s feel to these wizened ears. The song has a sleazy approach that transforms to a half blast, but I did feel the song lacked direction and a smooth flow.

Now as we get to “Garden Of Nuclear Mushrooms” I was expecting some trippy and psychedelic death fuzz like mid era Entombed maybe, but was assaulted with a tune more akin to metalcore with a down tuned breakdown feel. The double kick is definitely death metal but as with a lot of this I found it unadventurous and lacking a creative undercurrent to even attempt to get noticed by people outside their homeland. Only the title track offers some respite from this mundane EP, with its better riff and song writing. The half blast is OK as the tune sticks to a more death metal style and sounds better for it. I really have nothing else to say about this EP apart from must try harder guys.

(5.5/10 Martin Harris)

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