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Darkest Hour: Deliver us
05/07/07 || Euthanatos
Out the entire legion of metalcore bands that boomed in the U.S. in recent years, Darkest Hour were actually one of the originals and few interesting ones. “Undoing Ruin” was very well-received and commercially a success probably because of that too.
Darkest Hour has a lot of “melodic death metal” to their sound, which, even though this is also an extremely overdone and over-explored genre, works very well for the band’s sound.
“Deliver Us” isn’t that much of an improvement from the previous album, though. It’s good, pretty good even, it just doesn’t take the band anywhere new. There’s very solid guitar work here, some surprisingly memorable solos and the rest of the musicianship here is flawless. On that note, the album’s production is courtesy of Mr. Devin Townsend and he lives up to the hype, as usual.
The thing that I don’t like in Darkest Hour answers to the name of John Henry. There’s nothing special about his vocals, quite the contrary; his screams are generic, his clean singing is half-assed and sounds kinda emo-ish in that tone-deaf-I-have-the-flu way. Not my cup of tea at all.
Also, it’s a shame no song here actually stands out. There are cool moments in “Sanctuary”, a different pace in “Demon(s)”, a useless intermezzo (“The Light at the Edge of the World”), interesting acoustic parts in “Tunguska”, but nothing stands out. I don’t come away from this thinking “holy shit, I loved those riffs”, or, “I’m totally going back to that track again”. It all sounds the same, been done before, particularly by the same band, let alone other guys in the genre.
That’s the problem when a musical style gets too popular; everything gets exploited to shit until you can’t bear listening to another band that sounds the same, even if it’s one of the ones that kicked ass to begin with.
If you like Darkest Hour, you’ll probably like this. If you’re a metalcore fan-boy that enjoys everything from the gay Atreyu to the thrashier Lamb of God, you’ll dig it. If you’re somewhere in between, but looking for something fresh, flee from this.
The cover: Absolutely stunning. I’m giving these guys a higher grade just because of how awesome the artwork is. I’m an impressionable fellow.
6 (originally a 5, but extra brownie point for the cover) out of 10.
- Information
- Released: 2007
- Label: Victory Records
- Website: www.darkesthour.cc
- Band
- John Henry: vocals
- Kris Norris: lead guitar
- Mike Schleibaum: rhythm guitar
- Paul Burnette: bass
- Ryan Parrish: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Doomsayer (The Beginning of the End)
- 02. Sanctuary
- 03. Demon(s)
- 04. An Ethereal Drain
- 05. A Paradox With Flies
- 06. The Light at the Edge of the World
- 07. Stand and Receive Your Judgment
- 08. Tunguska
- 09. Fire in the Sky
- 10. Full Imperial Collapse
- 11. Deliver Us
