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DARK MASS owe their blinding success to their own introducing a radically new and unique genre into the musical practice: Progressive Symphonic HyperMetal (abbr. PSHM), which in its turn represents an exclusive detonating mixture of genres such as: thrash, death, black (everything not true), prog, folk and even hard(or was it heavy?). Plus all this is many times multiplied by supermasterly handling of the instruments and many-years experience of the group members. So now if you don't mind (and I assume you DON'T while this site doesn't have a guestbook, hahahaah!!! - Ed.) let's write down in red capital letters in the annals of the World History (not a typo - this has nothing to do with anal, really - Ed.) this modest term - PSHMR. But each history has its beginning. So from here we'll take it slow and step by step... Once upon a time millions of careless teens taken out to a demonstration by their loving soviet pedagogues got into a radioactive rain that fell on their heads from the far-famed chernobyl nuclear cloud. The cloud had circled the globe a couple of times to make those kids who were stupid enough not to wear any hats as famous as itself and to later present to the world (after a fixed number of half-life periods of course) some outstanding individuals created by balanced modifying of pathologic dissatisfaction and maniacal ignorance factors as the main criteria of the evolutional selection for this entire creative, young and promising generation. The band going under the name of DARK MASS was formed in 1997 in the post-soviet territory - where the Chaos begins and Marasmus is merged with Reality, the Absurd is reigning in a chaos of meaningless events and consciousness is rushing about in senseless searching of non-existing associations substituting habitual images for an alien to human reason reality. This new group was a result of a nuclear half-decay and mutation of some other two collectives, the names of which have been peacefully resting under a thick coat of dust ever since. The founders reportedly are: S.Dimon "Obsessed-By-Chainsaw"(guitar), B.Andreas "Bolt-in-Heavens" (drums) & D.Semione "Confessor-Of-Dissonance" (bass) plus C.Richter "Conductor-Of-Universe" (on the keys). Besides, for its striking popularity the band owes to people who stood at its origins and took an active part in developing its prosperity: P.Schurov (recording & sound investigations) and A.Verick (photo, design & various support). Back in the distant 1997 DARK MASS for the first time tried to play their signature HYPER METAL which didn't seem to arouse in their friends and accidental listeners anything but perplexity and health anxiety (everyone was worried about the musicians' health as well). Such psychological reactions were probably caused by a high note density and extreme complexity of drum fills and change-ups. Then after casting aside their last hopes for MASS appeal, absolutely dissembling the odd-looking MASS grinding through their beat-up speakers and half-dead equipment, the hero-musicians in some unbelievable way(mostly with the help of their animal instincts while ignoring the common sense) managed to reach the mutual understanding and isolated in their own Microcosm for playing The-Music-Of-Their-Own. That is how the Progressive Symphonic Hyper Metal was born... Now that a lot of time has gone since then together with many keyboard players and drummers, now when the group members are at the peak of their success they prefer to keep their personalities secret in order to escape photoflashes of troublesome paparazzi which could scare away those cherished and carefully nurtured phantoms of the future masterpieces. Currently DARK MASS is an instrumental band. But that has not always been the case. There was this earnest vocalist as an integral part of the band. While being a perfect devotee for the world, onstage he was badly possessed and had a grave sin of drinking before performances with the sole purpose of awakening his paranormal vocal abilities. Intensifying his gift with alcohol he used to go into the Astral right in the middle of the stage and then he'd get into contact with astral entities whose messages he heralded while performing his songs (look that up in *DISCOG* and *STREAMING MEDIA*, please). But one day, during a live performance he entered the Astral again when suddenly it turned out he hadn't estimated his alcohol dosage right and thus he couldn't find a way back into his body. To make things worse all of a sudden his body became a possession of an evil ghost while its host was missing. Before long his possessed body was screaming out streams of dirty oaths, terrible blasphemies, making vulgar gestures and displaying to the public all kinds of obscene visuals all at once. Letting out his rude cussing improvisations he was cynical enough to ignore any harmony and rhythm while repeatedly promising soon-to-come Apocalypse to all the humankind. It is beyond any man's abilities to quote exactly what was said, but in Spanglish it sounded like: "Shtb vi vse s`ki pdhli!!! Pzdts prshl vm vsm bldm Úbnm!!!" Having recovered from their shock, the band members rushed to help their mate - while literally kicking the hell out of his body they tried their best to free it from the illegal roomer. After this public act of violent exorcism the audience let out a loud roar of ecstasy taking what had just happened as a part of the perfectly staged show. However the band was about to face a severe trial - their beaten up fellow, as any truly religious and godfearing man would, repented of his sins and immediately declared a vow of silence which of course drove all the musical community into a deep depression. DARK MASS, on their part, swore on the Constitution that they wouldn't take another vocalist no matter how long their friend's vow would last(unfortunately he had forgotten to tell exactly how long when he had vowed). And that's how DARK MASS have come to be an instrumental band... There are some problems with the band's drummers as well. The permanent drummer for the group is someone Diogene(he can't remember his real name). Rejecting the doctrine about the objective existence of ideas as abstract concepts he accepts only the real existence of specific things, i.e. their single instances... That would be alright, but copying a famous philosopher he lives in the kick drum of his set and therefore when it gets colder he's forced to migrate to warmer regions and leave the band with nothing but midi samples at hand. The most musically educated member of the DARK MASS is the keyboard player named Richter who currently works at the Conservatoire (uhm.. it's a name of this storehouse for conserves and canned goods to be exact). His often eating free canned food on his keyboard during band practices has become a cause of evergrowing insect population all of which now hops, runs and crawls along the keys while he plays. And yes, you've guessed it, that's exactly where the nature of his crazed-out jazz improvisations lies together with those embedded unique twists - the psychotic random punches on the keyboard. It is hard to tell about the band's guitarist just as it is hard to deliver in captivating literary language an operation manual and parameters of a "BOSCH" chainsaw. Up to this day this incredible embodiment of someone's engineering thought is an example of practical perfection for his playing style. Now really - why drummers do not use a treadle drive for double-kicking it and a jackhammer for blastbeats? The band is always searching for new ideas, goes deep into various musical theories and experiments with different combinations of playing schools. But even here an extreme Care and constant Control (sometimes medical ones - Ed.) are necessary. For instance, constantly perfecting his style our bassist having no skilled tutor had gone so far and deep into the Theory of Discords that now his once powerful presence in the overall sound of the group became rather scarce and remote. As regards the music itself, the DARK MASS are not trying to escape the Generally Accepted to maintain their individuality at all costs, neither they turn their torture of instruments into the violation of music.
And that would be all. Perhaps after reading such a bio an average man would question in fear, "Why are you doing all this, guys?" |