Within every tribe and civilization, people stare at truth with reluctant eyes. Through truth (that bitter pill of the ages), we learn pain, and it is this heavy grief that teaches us to avoid suffering at all costs. While deceit seductively promises freedom from conflict and strife, it inevitably leads us to our own self-destruction. Therefore, does our very existence and societal investment in lying foretell our own pitiable doom? Can lies be untied and united with truths to create a wondrous whole? Will we follow truth where it leads us and not deny how our imperfections are prostituted?

It is in music where truth’s imprisoned splendor cannot be forsaken, where we can address the torturous realities of unresolved emotional anguish, the potential of violence from within, the fear of isolation, and our individual and collective capacity to invoke chaos upon ourselves. With nothing to gain or lose by navigating us past our scorn and sanguine resignation, five remarkable men from the south of Sweden known to the world as DARKANE stand to illuminate the path out of the moral traps of our own making with their latest effort, Layers Of Lies.

Born within the death metal genre amidst heavy influences from American thrash and Floridian death metal bands such as Atheist, Cynic, and Death, Agretator’s music soon became immensely technical. Ultimately, their musical complexity caused their own demise when the band ran out of the necessary time and inspiration to devote to songwriting. When the talented Agretator split up, guitarist Christofer Malmström, drummer Peter Wildoer (ex-Armageddon, ex-Arch Enemy), and bassist Jörgen Löfberg (The Defaced) decided to continue on. Immediately signed to War Records, the first two tracks ever recorded by the newly launched DARKANE (the fusion of “dark” and “arcane”) was for the label’s War Dance compilation, featuring Soilwork’s Speed Strid as a session vocalist.

DARKANE soon entered Dug Out Studios with producer Daniel Bergstrand (Meshuggah, In Flames, Strapping Young Lad) in August/September 1998 to record their mesmerizing full-length debut, Rusted Angel. Significant about their line-up was the addition of second guitarist Klas Ideberg (Terror 2000, The Defaced) and the fact that the band had not yet secured a lead singer. Asking Bergstrand for a recommendation, he suggested his assistant, Forcefeed/Seethings vocalist Lawrence Mackrory. Though his place in the band was temporary from the start, Mackrory urged the band to seek a replacement following the album’s completion. After deservedly receiving noteworthy praise throughout the underground in response to their first album – which many critics have hailed as one of the greatest debut albums in recent history – a tour with Soilwork and Naglfar in the Netherlands and Belgium ensued. DARKANE’s aggressive chemistry began to crystallize, and they eventually found a new frontman in local Helsingborg vocalist Andreas Sydow. A clean singer by trade, DARKANE set out to ruin Sydow’s throat for good by teaching him to scream, but instead discovered a unique voice that they wanted to permanently associate with the band’s sound.

Recorded like its predecessor with Bergstrand at Dug Out Studios and licensed to Century Media for North America, DARKANE’s aptly named second album, Insanity, was a compilation of manic ideas collected during their songwriting period. The recording sessions were plagued by a series of unfortunate events (flooding, lightning, and near electrocution!) causing production delays, but even those could not prevent Sydow’s vocal debut. Marked with more beats per minute than Rusted Angel and impressive time signatures, the end result was complex and mature synthesis of technical thrash & melodic death styles. Called “a masterpiece of extreme aggression” by Metal Maniacs, Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles described Insanity as “a white-hot maelstrom of extreme metal with the precision of a sniper and the force of a speeding freight train.” Their North American debut at 2001’s Milwaukee Metalfest resulted in a crowd frenzy punctuated by chants for an encore, a legacy that followed DARKANE on the road while headlining in the U.K.

2002’s Expanding Senses signaled a return to Dug Out Studios and the adventurous production talents of Bergstrand (the unofficial sixth member of the band). Though every song had its own character, all the familiar DARKANE ingredients were evident throughout: a futuristic mixture of thrash and death, caustic guitar arrangements, a propensity for strong melodies, and a robust undertow of tight drumming, with Sydow proudly giving an honed and inspired vocal performance. Kerrang! labeled the aural madness as “the missing link between Strapping Young Lad, Fear Factory, and At The Gates.” The album even included a guest vocal appearance from Lawrence Mackrory on “Chaos Vs. Order.” True to their inherent hit-and-run brutality, DARKANE’s live shows in Holland, the U.K., Japan, Tel-Aviv, through Poland with Behemoth, through Europe with Testament and Death Angel, at the Aalborg Metal Festival in Denmark, at the New Jersey Metalfest, and at the famed Wacken Open Air festival stayed savage and kept the shrapnel flying.

With no attempts to hide their fondness for classical music and to showcase their sonic equivalent of salt-rubbed wounds, 2005’s Layers Of Lies demonstrates not only the scope of the band’s own production abilities in their very own Not Quite Studio, but the impeccable musicianship of this Helsingborg quintet. Displaying precisely calculated playing coupled with great fluidity and comfort in performance, DARKANE’s musical dynamics prove intense, addictive, and inexhaustible. Their deft genius lies in Wildoer’s heart-exploding drum work, in Malmström & Ideberg’s unadulterated pursuit of destruction, the unpredictable twists in Löfberg’s bass lines, and the three different voices of abrasive screaming, melodic clean singing, and feral growls emanating from the ever-versatile Sydow. The thought-provoking lyrics of “Layers Of Lies,” the pulse-quickening “Godforsaken Universe,” the groove of “Decadent Messiah,” and the symphonic suspense of “Amnesia Of The Wildoerian Apocalypse” all portray the rapturous zenith of DARKANE’s collective talents. Brutal enough to satiate old fans, modern enough to span genres, and technical enough to appease the community of critics, Blabbermouth.net states the inevitable conclusion: “Layers Of Lies is one infectious, irresistible, charismatic ass-kicker of a record.”

Acknowledging that honesty is an acquired skill, DARKANE fearlessly ask themselves: “What are we becoming? What have we become? Why are we becoming what we are?” thus encouraging us to ask ourselves the same questions. The truth is, in order to unite imperfect fragments of self with candor, a dose of truth-inflicted pain is not only necessary, but is a welcome indicator of our willingness to attain the goal of our own deliverance.