After a hiatus of 5 years the return of one of the most original dark metal bands ia a fact. German goth metal veterans, Darkseed, will release their sixth studio album,"Poison Awaits", on July 23, 2010, featuring new singer, Harald Winkler, and new bassist, Michael Behnke (ex-Eisbrecher).
About this new release the newcomer Harald talked to us...

1- So after a hiatus over 5 years you are back with a new album. How satisfied are you with the final result of "Poison Awaits"?

Hi guys, I am Harald, Darkseed's new vocalist. We are really happy and excited about our new release. Everybody contributed the best he could, the songs are catchy and heavy but also full of unexpected twists and turns and the production is fantastic. So you can easily say that POISON AWAITS is one of the most diverse and interesting DS releases to date.

2- What happened all these years of your absence?

In 2005 the band released their highly successful album "Ultimate Darkness", the last album with their old vocalist Stefan. After that they took some time off, everybody in the band stayed creative though, which resulted in some side projects (Shiva in Exile, SpiRitual, soundtracks for games etc.). They could easily have produced a new album but it took a while until it "felt right", until the batteries were fully charged again to be able to create something new and exciting. Who needs bands who release an average album every single year just to be able to tour again? We really wanted to make sure that the material on POISON AWAITS kills. But we are of course aware of the fact that we shouldn't wait another five years to come up with the successor of
POISON AWAITS....

3- How did you come up with the idea to return Darkseed back into the music business?

After a reunion gig (which wasn't really a "reunion" as the band never officially had split up) at a festival in Munich in 2008 featuring me on vocals and our new bassist Michi we decided to record a new full-length album. And basically things went from there...

4- Give us a musical description of "Poison Awaits"?

It's our most diverse and eclectic album so far. There is the heavy and brutal songs, there are ballads, there are samples and industrial elements, but there is also the catchiness and the dark atmosphere you'd expect from Darkseed. I think Gothics and people into heavy music in general will love the album. It's like a visit to an evil Disneyworld: there is something for everybody.

5- Comparing with your previous albums where is better "Poison Awaits"?

I can't give you the answer from a musician's point of view but only from a fan's view as I wasn't part of Darkseed for many years. As far as the songs go, "Diving into Darkness" is my favourite album, but "Ultimate Darkness" of course has some hits too ("Disbeliever" , "My burden" , "The Fall" to name but a few) which we pretty much always play at gigs.

6- Do you think that your upcoming album is the best of your career?

I usually roll my eyes when bands state in magazines that their latest release is the "greatest, heaviest and most fantastic record the world of metal has ever seen". POISON AWAITS is definitely a little DIFFERENT from our past releases, obviously because I am the new vocalist in the band, but also as far as the dynamics and the diversity of the songs go, as Stefan and Tommy (git) usually wrote most of the songs all by themselves. This was changed this time as Armin (keys) and Tom (git) also contributed some fantastic tracks that made it on the album. But you shouldn't worry too much: the typical dark and melancholic heaviness and the Darkseed trademarks such as catchy choruses, meaningful lyrics and atmospheric electronics are still there.

6a-With perfect to be 10 what' s your personal point to the new album?

I don't think an album can be judged on a scale from 1 to 10. I know that a lot of magazines do that but it's such a personal and emotional issue and I can only hope that every fan of heavy and dark music gives our new album a try and finds out by themselves. They won't be disappointed!

7- Whats your expectation through this release?

What can you expect from a release in 2010? As we do not expect to make big money with Darkseed we can only hope to play a lot of gigs, to have
fun, feel the energy on stage and hopefully make the fans happy. That is at least my reason of being in a band in the first place. Then there's
also the great response from fans around the world who mail you stuff like: "this or that song changed my life or helped me through times of
struggle". It's definitely nice to hear something like that.

8- Where the influences for the creation of "Poison Awaits" come from?

As far as the music goes, there is five individuals in the band who all contribute to the mixture of sounds that is Darkseed. All of us listen to different musical styles, so there is a lot more than the "usual metal suspects" when it comes to finding riffs and sounds for an album.
Lyrically I was influenced not only by the omnipresent bad news you hear every day in the media but also by my pupils ( I am a school teacher) who grow up in this strange world where Facebook, clothes, style and material things have become the pillars of life. I don't want to sound like an old fart in my lyrics and try to teach things but somehow I implicitly try to portray that there is a light at the end of the tunnel beyond materialism and fast fame...

9- Has the environment you live in any influence to your music?

You are always influenced directly or indirectly by your surroundings. There is a lot of violence and injustice in this world, and many people listen to or play metal because of that... there is a way of cleansing yourself, a way of breaking free... or simply some sort of escapism: listening to heavy music to forget the problems around you for some time. So, yes, I think that your metal is always heavily influenced by your environment.

10- And what about the lyrics of the new album?

Most of the lyrics are really personal and less political than the ones on the last album. A lot of my lyrics metaphorically deal with people who have to face
challenges, fight crises or who try to find their place in a fucked-up world. Some of those characters manage to "make it", they concentrate on the real values of life and become a better person. This might sound a little religious, but finding a meaning is what life is all about, right?

11- How are you going to support this?

We hope to be able to find a booking agency and tour Germany and Europe, we still have a lot of fans worldwide and Darkseed is a live band, so we
simply HAVE TO play...

12- How do you label your kind of music?

This is a question I also have asked myself while listening to the new album because you cannot really compare our sound to any other bands really, which isn't a bad thing in my opinion. There are so many copycats in the industry right now, so many clones of well-known bands nobody needs. One aspect I should mention is that we are all in our mid-thirties, so we actually do what we want without taking a glimpse at "what the competition does". Nothing we do is trendy, Gothic metal isn't " a big thing" anymore and I don't even know if Gothic metal is the genre we belong to. When we started our band 18 years ago, that was way different of course, we would only listen to Paradise Lost, Anathema and so an and bands like this heavily influenced our music. If you really want a label I would maybe call our sound Dark Metal.

13- Do you have any certain plans for another Darkseed release in the future or maybe will take other 5 years for the next one?

There is no plans of splitting up, so , yes, you can expect more releases in the future!

14- Anything to add?

Thanks for checking us out and I hope to see you all soon live!