Search - Nuclear Blast Allstars :: Nuclear Blast 20th Anniversary: Out of the Dark

Best Metal Compilation in a long time.

Oblivionwarrior | Edgewood, NM | 10/04/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Peter Wichers ( ex soilwork) helmed this project and let me say that some of these songs are the best songs he has written since natural born chaos. This disc I believe is better than its counter part Into The Light which was good too but this just has more balls to it. With a guest list including drummers Henry Ranta ( ex soilwork) and Dirk Verbeuren ( soilwork) , Anders Friden, Peter Tatgren, Bjorn Strid, John Bush, Etc....you can tell he has an excellent supporting cast and the drumming is incredibly tight.. Track 3 Devotion is probably the fastest song on the album and features Jari from Wintersun and has some killer riffing in it. The biggst surprise on the album is The Dawn Of All which features Speed Strid from Soilwork on Vocals and is completely clean sung the whole way through. Listen this album features awesome riffs and awesome melodic death metal vocals with the only voice being the odd man out being John Bush who has an excellent groovy bluesy song in Paper Trail. If you are a fan of melodic death or Natural Born Chaos and after Soilwork then this album will def. fill the void til the next soilwork or Inflames album comes out."

Great idea - a true All Star death metal album

Justin Gaines | Northern Virginia | 10/03/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The counterpart to the Nuclear Blast 20th Anniversary: Into the Light album, Out of the Dark was a project put together by former Soilwork guitarist Peter Wichers to help celebrate Nuclear Blast's 20th anniversary. Where Into the Light focused on the label's progressive and power metal side, Out of the Dark celebrates Nuclear Blast's trademark stable of death and black metal artists. A different vocalist performs on each of the 10 songs on the album, including Anders Friden (In Flames), Peter Tagtgren (Hypocrisy/Pain), Jari Maenpaa (Wintersun, ex-Ensiferium), Christian Alvestam (Scar Symmetry), John Bush (Armored Saint, ex-Anthrax), Bjorn Strid (Soilwork), Maurizio Iacono (Kataklysm), Mark Osegueda (Death Angel), Richard Sjunnesson and Roland Johansson (Sonic Syndicate) and Guillaume Bideau (Mnemic).



Wichers wrote and played guitar on the entire album, so Out of the Dark has a definite Swedish melodic death metal feel, and sounds (naturally) a lot like Soilwork. Still, the fact that each contributing vocalist was able to write their own lyrics definitely put a unique spin on things, which is something the Into the Light album lacked. It's an extremely solid album all around, with some first rate vocal performances. My favorites are the Anders Friden, John Bush and Peter Tagtgren tracks, but there really isn't a bad song on the album.



I'd recommend Out of the Dark to anyone who is a fan of the bands listed above or just melodic death metal in general. Nuclear Blast is one of the absolute best labels around for this kind of music, and they really pulled out all the stops for this anniversary album.



NOTE: Out of the Dark comes with a bonus disc featuring a mix of rarities and singles from (then) current Nuclear Blast artists, including Dimmu Borgir, Immortal, Nile, Exodus, Anthrax, Meshuggah, Chimaira, All Shall Perish, Agnostic Front and Threat Signal. It would have made more sense if the second disc had album tracks from the bands that each vocalist on the main CD sing for, but it's still a pretty cool addition."