...With A Thousand Words To Say But One

It would be something of an exaggeration to suggest Darkest Hour are by any means an obscure band-they have been around for a decade-and-a-half in some form, released 6 albums, and done countless high-profile tours worldwide. However, I would argue that while not an unknown band, Darkest Hour are a largely underappreciated part of the modern melodic death/thrash scene. As one of the first American bands to fully embrace the Gothenburg melodic-death sound, DH were a good few years ahead of the rest of the pack, yet seemed to get caught-up-to and overtaken before they managed a solid foothold on the scene. Now there are many reasons you could attribute this to-Victory Records being balls at marketing non-emo bands, John Henry not being a particularly 'pretty' frontman, etc. My particular take, however, is simply this: Darkest Hour are way too fuckin' punk rock for most metal kids.

Example numero 1: Darkest Hour do not look much like a metal band. Sure, some (these days most) of them have long hair and tattoos, but fashionable these guys are not. They mostly resemble a bunch of scruffy dudes with varying degrees of beard-coverage, and that tends not to sit well with many of today's fashionista metalheads.

Example number 2: No singing. Ok, if you want to get picky, songs like 'Convalescence' and 'Demon(s)' have something approaching melodic singing in them, but we're not talking Howard Jones-style metal-opera here. Darkest hour keep it gritty and raw, whilst never falling back on cliched pig-squeals or death grunts.

Example number 3: Darkest Hour are Fucking Fast. Now, there are plenty of bands around these days with hyperspeed gravity blasting and magic-fingered swept arpeggios, but that doesn't count because I say so. Most of these tech-deathcore acts still can't resist grinding everything to a cock-blocking halt for a breakdown, and Darkest Hour country is chugga-slam free. More than anyone else I can think of, DH pick up momentum and stay at it, building thrash upon thrash into a thrashy thrash-house filled with thrash. Sure, they might pull back into a not-quite-thrash gallop, but only to give you a chance to pull your head from out of your ass, just so they can ram it back up there with more thrashy goodness.

I could continue, but I'm losing steam in trying to justify why Darkest Hour deserve more than they have recieved - they just fucking should, OK? At The Gates took 'em on tour, what more encouragement do you want?

p.s. Yes I am aware that this all seems a bit much considering I didn't even put them in my Top Ten Albums Of The Decade list, I swear 'Undoing Ruin' missed the cut by a fly's willy.

Sigur Ros Frontman in 'surprisingly worthwhile solo album' scandal!!!

Ok, if I'm being completely honest it's not all that surprising really. Sigur Ros' output throughout their decade+ career has been at least 'good', and mostly 'mind-alteringly wonderful', so that Jon Por Birgisson has crafted an engaging and very listenable record away from his bandmates isn't really groundbreaking news. I suppose my surprise comes more in the direction he's taken with the record, especially following 'Riceboy Sleeps', last year's drone/ambience heavy collaboration with partner Alex Somers. 'Go' is the kind of record a parallel-universe Postal Service might have made had they been brought up on an Icelandic farm-for every bowed guitar and reverb-soaked string swell there is a counterbalancing vocal glitch or skittering broken drumbeat. And rather than just being a showcase for Jonsi to prove he can do something other than 'haunting and etherial', the actual songs within 'Go' are of a very high standard indeed, leaving me with a much better taste in my mouth(ears?) than the last Sigur Ros album proper (not to discredit that record of course, wonderful as it is). I also understand that he is taking his show on the road, a prospect I was initially pretty sceptical about-what is he going to do to fill a headline show? It'd be something close to sacrelige to play Sigur Ros songs with other musicians, and the 'Riceboy Sleeps' material hardly seems fitting for a live setting. Plus, the tickets for the two London dates are going for the not-so-lovely price of £26 a pop, all factors leading me to believe that Jonsi is simply an incredibly self-important egotist that feels he can charge a fortune to longtime fans to see him play songs they don't know for 45 mins then bugger off. Then, I managed to catch a video on his website previewing what can be expected from the live show, and bloody hell, it looks like Jonsi is bringing something very special to the table. With the involvement of a British multimedia/art company, it looks like it's going to be an incredibly lavish theatre/gig hybrid involving big mechanical sets, lots of purpose-made animations and, if the video for first single 'Go Do' is an indicator, lots of flipping weird costumes. So, I now very much want to go and pay £26 pounds, thankyou very much. Maybe I shall see you there.