Darkest Hour's Darkest Hour?

It’s finally here! My days of anxious waiting by the mailbox have finally paid off! The first of my many pre-orders that I spoke of earlier has finally arrived. The first one in? Darkest Hour’s newest release The Eternal Return. And here’s what I have to say about it:

Hoooooly butts!

That about sums it up pretty well. However, the short story long would go a little something more like this:

Darkest Hour is one of those bands who developed a really large following in their early years. Tiny clubs in the greater Washington DC area would become sweaty meat boxes exuding testosterone and metal in one big stinky mess. As the band grew along with the scene they’d become a part of, concern grew among the truest of the true fans that they would "lose their edge" or "sell out" or what have you. In their past two CDs produced by Devin Townsend, Darkest Hour has danced the fine line between the absolute brutality that has become synonymous with the little thrash metal niche they’ve carved out for themselves and the dangerous turf of commercial success. Under Devin’s watchful eye, the song writing abilities and general compositional talents of the guys in the band flourished…although not to the extent of sounding manufactured. However, the guys decided to record The Eternal Return with Brian McTernan, who produced their record Hidden Hands of a Sadist Nation. Also, for whatever reason, before the last tour cycle, the band parted ways with their lead guitar player (and one of the fastest shred-junkies I personally have ever seen) Kris Norris. Not gonna lie, when I heard this I had this pang of fear that the unprecedented talent brought by Norris and the change of producers would push the band a step or two back.

NnnnnOPE dot com! Seamlessly they picked up right where they left off and continued writing, composing, and producing super awesome one hundred percent good fun time excellent America speed thrash metal!! Oh man and I couldn’t love them any more for it!

Couple key little factoids I’ve picked up in the couple spins I’ve given the record:

-New lead guitar player goes by Lonestar. Awesome?...! And he’s pretty above average himself.

-Mike Schleibaum does a lot more soloing and the guy LOVES his wah pedal and whammy bar. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this.

-The album has a very "major key" feel to it making a lot of the songs sound optomistic and upbeat. Compared to Undoing Ruin and Deliver Us (their last two CDs), this CD seems to present a more hopeful lyrical scene. Whether this is all part of a larger musical/lyrical purpose I don't know, but its an interesting little something I noticed.

-Guitar tone on the record for a lot of the rhythm work is kinda grainy sounding. It’s almost to the extent of sounding bad, but I think this was intentional. Having a grainy distortion on a mix like this adds to the raw, testosterone driven sound of the composition as a whole.

-The drums are TOTALLY roomed out. The beginning of one song has a little drum fill (track two or three I think) where you can hear how BIG and AMBIENT the room is. Totally sick…bro.

-The kick drum tone literally drives this record. With the grainy, distortion on the guitars, the HEAVILY fuzzed bass, and all the screaming, the super clean and super up-front (meaning that in the mix the kick drum, and only the kick drum, is really loud) kick tone punctuates every down beat, accent, and rhythm.

-I’d say the biggest victory on this CD is the use of the really roomy, clean sounding drum set mixed into the mess of everything else to produce a really interesting balance. It holds up the intensity while allowing the listeners attention to be directed to the interesting rhythms and picking techniques exhibited by the bass and guitars.


Epic. WIN!