What a nice surprise ! This German band offers us an excellent collections of songs in English (mostly) and in German, including traditional European themes and apocalyptic soundscapes. A very good  neo-folk album in which acoustic guitar, cello, synthetic noises, samples and minimal drums are supported by melancholic male and female voices.
Despite a strong personality, a few tracks would fit very well in the Fire+Ice (Frost, Hidden Stone) and Blood Axis albums (Night, Black wolves). It really is oriented on the World Serpent "family" and especially towards Sol Invictus tendencies. The sound quality is very good, as well as the nice sleeve's artistic orientation. A track (Deutsche Sonnwend) will appear in the long-awaited Sol 3 Book+CD compilation, but in the meantime, buy this record without hesitation, you won't be deceived.
You can get it from World Serpent Distribution or directly through Darkwood's master, at the following Address : Henryk Vogel, PF 310 325, 04162 Leipzig, Germany.
darkwood@darkwood.de
More infos on Darkwood official site : www.darkwood.de

Stéphane Fivaz, 25 November 99