Dark Suns

Originating from Leipzig, Germany in 1997, Dark Suns developed a sound that drew equally from the progressive death metal of Sweden's Opeth and the orchestrated gothic death/doom associated with November's Doom and early Paradise Lost. Their initial demo, Below Dark Illusion, surfaced the following year, and an EP called Suffering the Psychopathic Results of Daily Blasphemy—one fourteen-minute track—appeared in 1999. By 2002 the lineup consisted of vocalist/drummer Niko Knappe, guitarists Maik Knappe and Tobias Gommlich, bassist Christoph Bormann, and keyboardist Thomas Bremer, and they released their striking debut album, Swanlike. Existence, another ambitious and widely praised work, followed in 2005, by which time guitarist Torsten Wenzel had replaced Gommlich.