BIOGRAPHY:
"...Silent and Thirsty
I am slowly coming back
Rising from Mud and Slime
When all return to Dust..."
Die Kunst der Finsternis was formed as a solo project in the beginning of 2007 in Stockholm - Sweden with Deacon D. (a.k.a. Schattenriss) as the sick mind behind it.
The first demo entitled “Alter Schwarz Metall” was recorded at home during March 2007, in Stockholm, and given away as a gift exclusively to close friends and peers.
A couple of years later the Swedish Occult label SDP distributed a limited stock of 66 hand-made CDs of the demo.
In 2010 Deacon D. creates the songs and lyrics for the first full length henceforth called “Das Geheimnis des Vampirs” with nine tracks of dark and sickening metal of death with gothic horror parts as interludes, which also includes the re-recorded songs from the demo.
The obsession with Death and the Horrors of the crypt, takes Die Kunst der Finsternis literally to the grave and keep it buried (but not forgotten) for the coming years.
In 2017 an exhumation is performed and a new life in blown into the old rotten body of Die Kunst der Finsternis, taking it somehow “back to life” and giving it the breath to create all the pieces for the “Queen of Owls” album.
An Addendum of “Queen of Owls” is added later on, putting another gravestone in the cemetery of the odd arts.
“Revenant of a Phantom World – Queen of Owls Addendum” is scheduled to be released on the night of October 31st by the collaboration of Lamech Records and Amor Fati Productions.
Die Kunst Der Finsternis performs Horror Metal exclusively.
LINE-UP:
Deacon D. : All instruments
DISCOGRAPHY:
Alter Schwarz Metall - Demo CD-R (2007) / LP edition (2019)
Das Geheimnis des Vampirs - MC / LP / CD (2012)
Queen of Owls - DLP, CD, Special Edition. (2018)
Revenant in a Phantom World - LP / MC (2019)
LISTEN:
REVIEWS:
Die Kunst der Finsternis - Revenant in a Phantom World
"...A very dark and heavy sound starts off the album along with some grim spoken word parts a few seconds later which also evolve into black metal screams. When the music speeds up a decent amount of tremolo picking and blast beats can be heard which also gives the songs more of a raw feeling.
A touch of the first wave style can also be heard in some of the vocals while a great portion of the tracks are long and epic in length. At times the music captures the atmosphere of a horror movie as well as the solos and leads being done in a very dark and melodic style..."
8 out of 10. OccultBlackMetalZine
Die Kunst der Finsternis - Queen of Owls
"...Queen of Owls presents a lot of interesting design choices that make it hard to pin down, namely its continual shift from classical sounds to Black Metal. Most projects that have only a single member writing and playing all of the material don’t generally carry this kind of depth. Deacon D. is a maestro when it comes to composition. Whether it’s the haunting piano passage on “The 13th Mystery” or the exemplary metallic riffs that bring “Inferno” to a close. Honestly, the man is simply one of the few great musical masterminds to rise from a style of music that as of late has failed to produce anything innovative. ".
Anti-matter, October 6th, 2017. Plague Haus.
Die Kunst der Finsternis - Das Geheimnis des Vampirs.
Unio Mystica of Darkthrone and Mercyful Fate - 91%
...."Das Geheimnis des Vampirs" tape starts with organ intro, which gets the listener right into the whirlpool of straightforward second-wave black metal in the vein of Darkthrone's best days. The second track, "Flaming Hearts", begins with a pompous slow and atmospheric part with keyboards and chants at the background that would fit into some early Emperor album, but then, when you just expect it to turn into the next Darkthrone-like riff, the unprepared listener would be caught napping by the Mercyful Fate-worshipping heavy metal passage. Basically, besides organ intros, the heavy metal parts are the main schtick that Herr Schattenriss uses to dilute the black metal torrent of this album..."
Fulgurius, February 3rd, 2013. Metal-archives.com