adg211288 Dark Matter (2015) is the debut full-length album by Russian power/thrash metal act Distant Sun. Distant Sun have existed for a few years now and previously released the EP Sunless Citadel (2011) but seem to have been completely silent in the intervening years, possibly due to the membership's involvement in other bands, which includes Shadow Host and Starsoup.

The connection to Shadow Host is pretty apparent in the music found on Dark Matter. The album presents a quite similar style to that found on the other band's Apocalyptic Symphony (2013) album, which Distant Sun's Alexey Markov also sang on. This is primarily a guitar driven kind of power metal but with a very strong thrash metal side which not only gives some great power-thrash tracks but also results in ones like the opening Prophet of the Mean, which barely have anything to do with power metal. The vocals are quite harsh and raw sounding (not growling but not that far off from that more extreme territory either), though true to the form of power metal there is still plenty of room for catchy choruses. There's lots of aggression in both the music and the vocals, but the album does also offer up a softer, more melodic side with a laid back pace, as heard in parts of the title track before the band launches into some bursts of the power metal speed. There's also an acoustic track to be had in Gifts of Journey, which unlike with other power metal albums, especially aggressive power metal albums like Dark Matter, doesn't hurt the album's flow.

Dark Matter is a pretty solid record, combing the energy of power metal with the rawness of thrash metal to great effect. Track highlights for me have to be Kill the Fremen, Dark Matter, Matrix Hacked and Zero to Hero. As the production job on the album isn't over-polished even though the actual style of the power metal riffs is quite typically European the album as a whole may find more listeners in USPM and thrash camps, though fans of the German brand as played by an act like Grave Digger will probably want to give Distant Sun a try as well. This debut album from the Russian group isn't exactly revolutionary within the genre, but these guys know their stuff and throw in an impressive variety to make it stand out. 4 Stars.