On the edge of the new millenium (phew, what a boring word these days), it looks like quite a number of young bands are bound to take the leap into the huge ever-churning ocean of metal with the ambitious aim of shaking the long-tried standards in every style. Among them is DAKRUA from Italy, a name to look after when you are walking on the ground once paved by THEATER OF TRAGEDY, TRISTANIA, and so on. While belonging wholeheartedly to this gothic-metal scene, they are claiming influences you wouldn't expect them to worship that much, i.e. IRON MAIDEN, BLACK SABBATH, QUEEN, ANATHEMA. With such references, and a first album "Inner Wastelands" already sounding like a milestone, I trusted them to have a bit of a refreshing message to deliver to those of us who got tired of the "beauty and the beast" clich. Here are the wise words of a band who will walk its destined way for sure.
Sure. The history of Dakrua starts in September 1995, when Alessandro Buono (guitar) and Davide Sangiovanni (drums) formed a gothic metal band called "Opera Omnia". In the following years I (William Quattrone, bass and vocals) and Marco Lo Cascio (keyboards) joined the band, and the name was changed to "Dakrua". In February 1998 we released a Promo-tape, after which Eva Rondinelli (vocals) entered the band. In June 1998 we made a deal with Scarlet; in August 1999 we've recorded "Inner Wastelands" and released it in late November.
Under the Veils: do you want to hear the dynamics and versatility of Dakrua? Here we are!
Mist: Eva shows her powerful voice in this groovy mid-tempo, if there is a single in the CD is surely this.
Amor, Vita, Mors: just the first song (but still very mature) written by Dakrua;
Of Chaos: dynamic, shape-changing, with an helluva drumming and riffing, definitively a progressive-gothic-METAL song!
The Loss: a very melancholic and yet pounding tune;
Inner Wastelands: groovy and Mediterranean;
Silent Scream: heavy and direct.
To the Sun: a ray of hope and sweetness in the dark;
A New Morning: a majestic closure in pain and bitterness.
No, but there's a back-line to all the album, the visual dimension of which you can see on the colours of the CD's cover.
Dakrua has a different approach towards the gothic metal: we try to be more dynamic and powerful, as you can hear from the music and the voices, in opposition to standard gothic acts, because we think that the physical involvement in the music must be equal to the mental involvement.
Sometimes it's a little bit boring, because we want to talk of our music, that is quite different from that played by Lacuna. However they are nor a hurdle (we wish them well) nor a springstone, because , again, we have a different approach to music.
We always try to innovate, we try to write original music, without the presumption to invent a new trend: we play gothic metal. At the same time our musical origins are wider: they go from Black Sabbath to the Progressive rock '70 and from hard rock bands like Queen and Led Zeppelin to melodic death metal acts as In Flames and Opeth. That's why we don't sound like clones of other gothic bands.
It's indeed difficult to develop a personal sound from the first album (a thing that however we've tried to do), but there must be at least a seed, so that a band can develop its own personality behind its influences.
Maybe, but we don't care, because Eva's voice is the perfect expression of Dakrua's music, and many have liked her kind of voice, to me more expressive and warm of that of many of her colleagues.
What we want for the years to come is just to play our music and to be ourselves. If that will be rewarded by the sales, we'll surely be happy. If the sales will not go well we will continue to play for ourselves, driven by our love for the music.
We are satisfied of our situation, because we can play our music, as you said without pressure, and because we can continue to study or to work with the security to express in the music our passion, and not the need to sell an album to survive. What many people don't know is the fact that signing with a big label doesn't mean automatically to be capable to live with the music, but many times it just means living an harder life, with dates dictated by the label.
I don't know, maybe Ôcause we (the Italian metal bands) have understood that we must develop our sound and stop trying to emulate Swedish or German bands. I sincerely wish the best to French and Spanish bands, because our culture is very tied, our nature is warm and we must free it on our music!
We are working on new material , but the next release will take at least 1 year, because we aren't really fast in writing, we take our time. There's an opportunity to go in tour at the end of March with Death SS, we'll see if we can tour also in Europe.
Our wish bands to tour with are surely Black Sabbath and Anathema as headliners.
Yes, we pay attention when the comment is intelligent (be it positive or negative), we don't give a fuck when we see that the reviewer has listened to the album only 1 time. In both cases our music remains influenced, we are our worst critics.
The brain are all Dakrua's members, the pencil is Cinzia Tarantola, a girl of Milan.
Just to be yourselves, in every situation, as we do.
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