Short Reviews [Dark Intervals - 2011 - "The Flow"]

Well, the band website no longer exists, which is a real shame as this 2011 album shows real promise (Editor’s note: Dark Intervals moved their net presence to blogspot and Bandcamp). Close inspection of the digipak leads to me to believe that the one I have was #10 out of 100, so don’t know if that was all that was pressed, or if this was a special promo, as I don’t have a press release to go with it. I haven’t been hanging onto this one for 8 years (honest), as it only recently came to my attention, just can’t remember when I got it from – the perils of old(er) age I guess. Dark Intervals is a solo music project created by Finnish musician Ilkka Harjula, who (according to the bible which is Discogs) moved onto Operation Majority after this. He provides all the music, lyrics and instrumentation and is joined by Finnish singer Margit Tornio. It is mostly a dark gothic guitar-based album, with progressive overtones, keyboards and plenty of superb vocals. The drums are weak, and if this project had stayed the course then I am sure Ilkka would have brought in a proper drummer, but this was all recorded in his home studio (Editor’s note: The project is ongoing). Nightwish are an obvious reference, but the darker more sombre music as opposed to the folky side, while I also found myself being reminded of early Legend, although the keyboard/guitar interplay isn’t up to the levels I would expect from that band. Certainly interesting and worthy of hearing if you can find it.