Dunkelschön – Zauberwort (2011)

„Dark Beautiful“ was founded in the year 2004 and make music in the art of folk-rock with a touch of medieval.
It seems, as if “seven” is the magic number of medieval music, so there are seven people in the band. Dunkelschön was not entirely known by myself as other bands like “In Extremo” or “Subway to Sally”, but in the first seconds of pure listening I was pleasantly surprised, because the first song “Zauberwort” has its one style.It does not sound to the aforementioned bands, there´s a unique atmosphere going out of the voice of Vanessa and it takes on at “Golden”, where she is vocally supported by Michael.A rousing and enthralling title on the CD is "Spielmann", in which the cello is heard well in addition to the e-guitar. I like this song and the CD is very diverse up here.You cannot expect more receptive of the quality. The Cd is produced top. Applies here: two thumbs up! “Flügelschlag” begins with flutes and haves  instant sing-along character, here you can also just be excited. I also like “Tri Martolod”. It´s a celtic song, in which the band combines all of their energy and skill and gives the song its one face.Dunkelschön lives the music they make and do magic with the sound of the instruments and enchant the listeners.
The cover is adorned by a talisman/amulet, which fits very well to the theme “Zauberwort”. Otherwise it is rather colored in earth tones what I usually like very much.
I have the album as a Digipack, inside with a very good booklet. All songs are written down and you can read them all really good. In the middle of the booklet, there are fotos from all persons of the band and on the back of the booklet the homepage is specified.

All in all a very good implementation and I can only say: full score!!!

Result: With “Zauberwort” Dunkelschön created an album with a very versatile character. The songs are varied and the band knows exactly how they have to handle the instruments. The voices fits well into the whole image.Summarized: This CD is a must have for all medieval folk rock fans.

Line Up:

Vanessa Istvan                   voice, flutes
Monika Klüpfel                  cello
Nicolas von Stolzmann       guitars
Michael Kaiser                   voice, Nyckelharpa, symphonia, harp, E-guitar
Christian Wittkopf              Davul, Percussions
Bernie Horn                       bass
André Straub                     drums

sound quality: 10/10                variation: 9/10             cover: 9/10                 booklet: 10/10
Total: 9,5/10