The music of D’Arcadia is a mixture between gothic, medieval and pagan folk, somewhere between Faun, Qntal and Hagalaz’ Runedance.
On their previous EP (Théatre du Satan) the band sounded dominant acoustic. This new cd, Realitale, features lots of electronic beats and also some electric guitars. Still dominating the sound of the band is the hammered dulcimer, which is accompanied by a shawm, some flutes and a hurdy-gurdy.
The fusion of (electronic) darkwave/gothic music and medieval tunes works well. This is proven by Qntal for many years now. D’Arcadia is less traditional in the sense that most songs are written by the band themselves, as Qntal takes old music as basis for their music.
Despite this in most instances the songs on Realitale sound very much medieval. The purist among us will probably not like this cd, but the ‘normal’ listener will not have a problem with the sound.
‘An Luna’ and “Decade’s Diary’ are good examples of nicely done cross-overs with lots of atmosphere. From time to time the electronics could have less dominant (‘Tale’ and ’Oh Death’), but besides that this record is a very good cross-over album.
