DARK – NIGHTMARE (debut album) – Review

YOUNG & COLD RECORDS / YCR106

Release date: 15.12.2021

The debut Album from DARK is soon with us. I have been lucky enough to get hold of a copy for review and what an album this is. The deep and eerie vocals of DARK are haunting alongside the energetic and incredible deep electronic synths make this a real gem of a debut album in the Darkwave/Goth/Post-Punk genre.

For fans DARK this album will be very welcome considering his first year of success with over 1,000,000 streams across platforms.

Older goths will hear in the track “Gothic Love” an electronic synth sound that will remind them of Gary Numans inspiration of John Foxx “Underpass”. The vocals that DARK bring the very deep vocals hit you with low tone but thrill you at the same time.

The opening song is gothic magic with its elegant synth and DARKs vocals.

Take a listen to album as a whole, this is more than a debut album this is well produced album with a great varying sound although all very much DARK. He has managed to blend this perfectly to give the listened nostalgia with modern electronic synth to ensure this album pleases his fans old and new a debut album that sounds so goos that more long standing artist would be proud of.

DARK has pulled of a great flowing dark gothic album that will establish a very hight benchmark for future releases. If you have never heard DARK before do not be deterred to try something new Asia you are into any of the above genres plus Numan/Foxx fans this will come as incredible surprise. The album can proudly sit among some of the best synth/goth albums to date.

The album is released 15/12/2021.

-VK Mike

NIGHTMARE is the debut full-length album release of the singer and songwriter DARK (Hamburg). It contains all his first 8 songs, including the successful singles “Forever Suffer”, “Nightmare”, “Nyctophilia” among others. The cover artwork features the Canadian goth model Madame Absinth, who starred in the official music video of this track. Picture by Dan Fischer. 

DARK is a Darkwave/Goth/Post-Punk singer and songwriter (Hamburg). His first digital single “Forever Suffer” was released in June 2020, and quickly it turned into a sensation among the international alternative/dark scene. It led the music video to be premiered by Cvlt Nation. 

Periodically came one successful hit after another, and in November 2020 DARK inked a record deal and announced its first EP ‘Nightmare’ (Young & Cold Records).

Despite the tape format, and having only 5 tracks, it sold-out within 12 days still during the pre-orders, and reached:

-Bandcamp #1 Post-Punk ‘new and remarkable’
-Bandcamp #3 Darkwave Bestseller-Record (November)
-Young & Cold #1 Best-seller of the month (November)
-Young & Cold #1 Best-seller of the year (August)

Following its success, DARK released the hit ‘Nyctophilia’, which was instantly featured in hundreds of playlists, being his first music video to reach 50k views on YouTube.

Now, one year after it’s conception, DARK is featured in 10,000+ Spotify playlists, and has a total of over 1,000,000 streams on all platforms.

The label Y&C records announced the full-length as “probably the strongest release of the year”.

For the artist, it’s only the beginning and his best songs are yet to come.

Source: Press release

PRE-ORDER DARK “NIGHTMARE” (Vinyl & CD):
https://youngandcold.de/shop/dark-nightmare/

More info and socials:
https://linktr.ee/the.official.dark