DARKNESS ALBUM REVIEW FULL
DARKNESS ALBUM REVIEW FREE

DARKNESS ALBUM REVIEW FREE

The refreshing aspect of all of this is that these efforts are free of the often awkward heavy-soft juxtapositions and repetitive bounce riffs that plague a record where a band is obviously trying to move away from a stale sound by bringing the 2000s back. The bass-driven grooves of bleeding and rap-like vocal delivery of “Bleeding” is reminiscent of something off of Around The Fur, whereas the lush cleans and hypnotic drumbeats of duo tracks “Romance” and “The Love Machine” would be at home on White Pony. While this is still mainly a dark, heavy metalcore album, there is also a heavy presence of Deftones nu-metal/shoegaze at times.

DARKNESS ALBUM REVIEW FULL

Overall, Varials have taken a sound that was an anomaly in a debut album full of pummeling hardcore and integrated it well into their second effort. Mike Foley’s bass is dominant tracks, somehow having become more imposing than it was on the last record, and not only provides a strong undercurrent to the rest of the mix, but has some interesting lines of its own to bring character into what could just be generic, burly hardcore bass playing that follows the riffs. “Obstacle III” is an obvious nod to Interpol with the guitar outro. “I against i” is the most cohesive example of this, with terse moments of calm in the pre-chorus before heading into a chorus accompanied by a moody synth progression. The first thing you will notice about this album with tracks like “Wound”, “I Suffocate” and “i against i” is the more tense, slow-burn approach to songwriting and the increased attention to atmosphere. The song gradually built to a climax, far different from the other tracks on the album, which were mostly straightforward, breakdown-laden bruisers. When looking at their discography, an important track on 2017’s Pain Again was “Abacus”, a moody, slowly-building track where vocalist Travis Tabron shouted over muted, dissonant guitar work, and a trudging drumbeat. An interesting album that features alternative metal influences and a more brooding, restrained sound, it sees the Philadelphia outfit taking their abrasive metallic hardcore and making it much less one-note than their debut. Varials’ second LP, In Darkness falls squarely into the last category. Some of these have been pretty horrendous, but most range from acceptable, if uninspired, to pretty interesting. 2019 already had almost every popular metalcore/hardcore band release a record that was at least in part filled with low-end seven-string grooves, industrial/synth noises, and rap-like vocals. It’s about time that everybody in the scene addresses the elephant in the room: nu-metal is back in full force in the year 2020. Just remember one man’s gash is another man’s gonk.Review Summary: Growth with little compromise. A debut record to alphabetize for years to come. Joined by the gasps of Justin Hawkins and his mojo. We’ll still go dancing on ‘Friday Night’ however my dear catsuit comrade. ‘Love On The Rocks With No Ice’ is overrated, ‘Love Is Only A Feeling’ is far more sanctimonious and heartfelt. Bar the aping of the ‘greatest song in the wooorld’ of ‘Black Shuck’, the familiarity of the majority of the rock is bucket gasping. Bowie in the sense of post pomp, let’s never think of Berlin again and Motley’s arrogant anthem pop machine without the fat guitarist.ĭepending on the ferocity of your previous Darkness purchases you could be disappointed. It takes the Bowie meets Motley Crue to its logical resting place. ‘Permission to Land’ takes all the Hoxton hype and blowholes it into a magnificent ball of purple power fire. What appeared to be a moment of hysteria, turned into a lifetime of anthems. The Darkness are a band that will last the course, they will play the final ball when the gong hits midnight. Go find a new iconic squirrel obsessed, STD infested ‘gang’ who like to dance with mister brownstone. The Darkness are not the saviours of British rock. Apparently they nearly took away our credentials for not laughing back when DiS caught these scaggy rock n roll outlaws back in the drug pits of west London.

So I told them it was and suggested they hurried there quick before they close the gates. Fleet Street called and wondered if Lowestoft was the ‘new’ place to be. He’s calling those Radio One listeners cunts (see: ‘Get Your Hands Off My Woman’ – make note to contact content programmer). The scary man in the leotard is shouting at my friends on CD:UK.

Darkness album review