Dark Monument, a fresh force in the black metal scene, emerges from the depths of personal loss and collective creativity. Formed in Munich, this band crafts deeply emotional and thought-provoking soundscapes that resonate with themes of pain, resilience, and existential exploration. With their debut album released in 2025, Dark Monument has already left a mark, blending raw authenticity with a bold artistic vision.
Serial Metalbums: Dark Monument is a new name in the black metal scene, with your debut album released in 2025. Can you share the story of how the band was formed? What brought you together, and what inspired you to create this project?
Manuel Moser: The whole idea of creating this project started with our vocalist Manuel. He suffered a big loss within his family end of 2021 and found a way in dealing with his emotions and pain through writing songs. Member for member he convinced all of us to change this "one man idea" Into a full functioning Band. As all of us agreed with the themes of the lyrics, the overall sound of what Manuel has already written and the whish of everyone to build up a black metal band, this is how Dark Monument was born.
Serial Metalbums: The name Dark Monument evokes powerful imagery. What does it represent for you as a band, and how does it connect to the themes you explore in your music? Every band has a unique starting point. Were there any key moments or challenges during the early days of Dark Monument that shaped your path to releasing your first album?
Manuel Moser: The name Dark Monument should be more understood as an concept than as a thing. All of our songs are themed about the darkest moments of an individuals live. Over a lifespan you will experience many of this moments. With each and every memorie, moment of fear, suffering and pain you build your own dark monument within you and you have to carry it's weight.
The early days of us as a band were very exciting and not problematic in a significant way. The hardest challenges are always to overcome personal opinions for the benefit of the band.
Serial Metalbums: For a debut album, you’ve entered the scene with a bold and striking identity. How would you describe the artistic vision behind Dark Monument? What message or emotion do you aim to convey through your music?
Manuel Moser: We want to dive deep into the darkest places within us and the listener. Every being has its own battles to fight and challenges to overcome. Our vision is to build the soundtrack for this scenery of hopelessness and dark thoughts. Every song on that record has its own story to tell. As Darkness Reigned is the memory on a horrible past, Zerrissen is about the question what or if something awaits after death and Sheol is Manuels personal fight through depression. But all songs are written for the audience so we changed the very personal story's into something everyone can relate to. Nightly Paths is themed around being forced to go through never ending nightmares. These are all themes that are easy approachable but in private everyone keeps for him/her selfe. We want to be the ones who are the save harbour for listeners that are through or in situations and emotions like this. And hopefully we can guid them through. Guide them towards a glimpse of hope.
Serial Metalbums: Black metal has a long history of pushing boundaries. How does Dark Monument aim to stand out while staying true to the essence of the genre? What inspires the themes and lyrics in your music? Are they rooted in personal experiences, mythology, philosophy, or something else entirely?
Manuel Moser: It is really hard to stand out in every kind of genre but we don't want to invent the wheel again.
We think a good way to write unique music is to have unique inspirations. Everyone in the band listens obviously to black metal but also in some many other genres like cinema sound tracks, indie rock, rap and punk. And we don't write after a fixed formula to create explicitly black metal. We write all our music after how it feels the best. If it needs to calm down we write atmospheric clean parts, if it needs to push forward a blast beat and fast guitars are needed. It is all bound to the lyrics and the overall storys we tell. Some of our songs deal with real personal experiences that are often changed slightly to sound a bit like an philosophy work. Some songs are songs are based on old or forgotten folklore themes.
Serial Metalbums: Your debut album has undoubtedly set the tone for Dark Monument. Could you walk us through the concept and themes explored in the record? What story or message do you hope listeners take away from it?
Manuel Moser: As we said before everything is set around the concept of an personal Dark Monument within everyone of us. Everyone is dealing with sometimes smaller sometimes bigger problems and challenges in life. The songs on this record tell about some of this challenges without giving a clear answer or solution to it. Pest is good example for this. Here we are telling a story of a father and his daughter who have to flee from their village towards the peak of a mountain in hope to find safety there. If they make it or not is open to the listener. The audience should start to think about how to deal with such situations and make up their own endings to our story's. You should dive into the protagonists view an feel along with it.
Serial Metalbums: What was the creative process like for this album? Did you face any unexpected challenges or moments of discovery while writing and recording it? As this is your first full-length release, how does it feel to finally share it with the world? What has the reaction been like so far, both from the fans and the black metal community?
Manuel Moser: We definitely became one unit after writing and recording. The biggest guideline to not running into problem while writing was the rule for everyone "if you don't like an idea, come up with a better one or shut the f**k up". The recording was a long process as everyone was ether working full time or studying alongside that we did everything ourselves. We didn't go to a studio. Everything was recorded in our rehearsal room with the help of our friend and head of our label Christopher. From micing up and recording real drums to the last note recorded we are so happy and proud to have a true and real DIY album out now.
The reactions from within and outside the black metal community is just unbelievable. We always knew that what we are creating is not bad but we were not prepared for such a big and beloved reaction.
Serial Metalbums: The German black metal scene has a strong presence in the global extreme metal landscape. How has the local scene influenced you, and where do you see Dark Monument fitting into it? Are there any particular bands, artists, or even other art forms that have inspired your sound and style? How do you take those influences and make them uniquely your own?
Manuel Moser: for sure we're influenced by the German scene. We look up to artists like Der Weg einer Freiheit, Kanonenfieber, Antrisch and Groza, but to be honest we didn't know about a big underground scene in our hometown of munich. We discovered some small local bands but got never in touch with them so far. The big Bands inspired us soundwise and how they perform with full energy. We are not sure by now how and where we fit in this exactly. Live shows are ahead and close. Only time will tell where we settle in the scene and it's on a growing fanbase to decide where this journey will lead us. We for ourselves are happy to give our music to the world and perform our work on the stages that are open to us.
Serial Metalbums: Black metal often draws from a wide range of themes, from existentialism to nature to occultism. What thematic elements resonate most with you as artists, and how do they shape your creative output?
Manuel Moser: Nature and reality in black metal is so fascinating. What is beyond life, the force of wind and elements, the fear of what the future holds and questions that can't be answered will always be thematic elements that we used and will use in future releases. There are so many story's that need to be told. We all have scars from the past. We won't believe that we run out of themes and ideas for new songs soon. As all of this themes aren't particularly happy or bright we don't think that our dark and cold sound will change in the near future. On the other way we have a bit critical view on the occult driven side of black metal. There are bands that tackle this theme so good, like Boötes Void but unfortunately nowadays this theme became kind of a meme. Satanism or mystic occultism getting boring and overused. It can work for sure but it is very easy to fail on themes like this. We also use themes like demons and hell in our songs. But more as a form to express and clearly situations. It's more a lyrical solution for us.
Serial Metalbums: With your debut album now complete, what are your aspirations for Dark Monument moving forward? Do you already have ideas for new music or concepts to explore in the future?
Manuel Moser: We primarily focusing on playing live shows on every good opportunity that comes to us. Connecting with new people and marking our spot in the scene. Creating new music does not stop for us. Over the mixing and mastering process of the album we already continued writing new music and already have some songs in the bag. It will take some time for the next release since we focus on playing live now but there is already something brewing. The upcoming material will have it's eyes more on anger and pain. More aggression but also more experimental things without losing the core of sound we now established.
Serial Metalbums: Black metal often thrives on a balance between chaos and order, darkness and beauty. How do you navigate these contrasts in your music, and how does it reflect your personal philosophies as artists?
Manuel Moser: The beauty on Black metal is for sure it's many ways to show emotions, light and darkness. We use this to our advantage and guid the listener through ups and downs with sometimes harsh changes between brute and fast metal riffs that immediately change into beautiful acoustic passages. The aggressiv sound makes it extremely suitable for "screaming it all out" even though the lyrics are near tears. Over the years black metal changed so much from its original idea to what it is now that were so happy to be part of this new generation of emotion driven black metal bands.
Serial Metalbums: In the end, what would you like to say to those who are discovering Dark Monument for the first time, as well as to fans who are already resonating with your debut album?
Manuel Moser: Thank you is probably not enough but we are a bit lost of words after all the love we got so far. To all of you that discovered us, just sink into our music and make yourself your own picture of what fragments of darkness and light are within you. We can't thank you enough for how much you all have pushed us so far and what the future holds for us.
We won't rest and more music from Dark Monument will come. Visit our live shows and tell us in person what our songs made with you. We love all of you.