Some people view the day brothers Justin and Dan Hawkins teamed up with Frankie Poullain and Ed Graham as a detrimental day in rock history. The Darkness dared to bring back the dreaded glam rock genre — and even popularize it again, at that. <\/p>\n
Cut to Permission To Land<\/i>, the band\u2019s full-length debut. Proabably to the surprise of many, this record sold more than well, going over five times platinum. And to be honest with you avid and devoted readers, I actually enjoyed this album a bit. It makes me sick because I hate all that 80s hair metal trash, but this was something different, and it had pretty decent songwriting. <\/p>\n
The problem with these fad bands (and that\u2019s definitely what The Darkness are, and nothing<\/i> more) is that most of them don\u2019t realize they need to keep driving themselves to be innovative, new, and unique. You can\u2019t just spew out the same old tired crap and expect to get much credit. Although not nearly as heavy an offender, The Strokes are in a similar boat. After their groundbreaking garage rock album Is This It<\/i>, they haven\u2019t come up with anything that fresh since. The Strokes don\u2019t make bad<\/i> music per se, but it isn\u2019t going to win them any awards. <\/p>\n
Well in The Darkness\u2019 case, it is<\/i> bad, and it\u2019s bordering on the embarrassing. The song writing has drastically deteriorated. There are very few tunes on this record that leaves the listener wanting to hear more. Musically, it feels like the record drones on for an endless period of time, which is especially concerning considering this is only a 35-minute album. <\/p>\n
Out of those 35 minutes, there are only two tunes that I genuinely enjoyed. \u201cIs It Just Me\u201d (in which the guitar riff sounds dangerously similar to \u201cGivin\u2019 The Dog A Bone\u201d by AC\/DC) provides a pounding hard rock riff alongside some rare decently-written lyrics from Justin Hawkins. \u201cBald\u201d is easily the highlight of the album – there are actually some cool rhythm changes and it dares to break out of a painstakingly monotonous sound – but it comes just a little too late. This song swims like a gorgeous little fish that is cluttered by polluted water and nasty seaweed. <\/p>\n
Had this been an instrumental album, I may have given it a higher rating. Justin Hawkins\u2019 lyrics manage to be worse than his fake, wannabe falsetto vocals. At no point in time is this more evident than on \u201cKnockers\u201d (which should speak for itself), where Hawkins croons, \u201cOh Christ, I’m enticed \/ I want you in my sack \/ Your potty-mouthed and brassy \/ You’re anything but classy.\u201d Way to paint a picture for us, buddy. It doesn\u2019t seem like he wanted to delve into any \u201cdeep\u201d topics on this record, does it?<\/p>\n
Not only does The Darkness manage to bring back those good ole glam rock days, but they also brought back the pop. Sweet, right? No, not at all. There\u2019s a reason I can\u2019t name one pop artist from the 80s, and that reason is most likely that I\u2019m allergic to bullshit. On \u201cGirlfriend,\u201d the listener is treated to exactly that: bullshit, with sugar sprinkled on top. It\u2019s a metaphor that should speak for itself. <\/p>\n
When I picked this album up (regretfully), I really thought The Darkness could have done something positive here. They could have helped to revitalize a frowned-upon genre. Instead, all they have done is remind us of why the 80\u2019s are gone. Don\u2019t waste your time with this one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":28418,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6996],"rating":[5616],"class_list":["post-39863","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-darkness","rating-rating-d"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39863"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}