The Darkness
Permission To Land
Review by Chris Varacchi
Overall, the CD sounds like Queen and AC/DC had a baby (an ugly one at
that), and raised the kid on Van Halen and Judas Priest. When the kid reached
his more formative years, he found a copy of Meatloaf's "Bat Out Of Hell."
If the wave of "nu-rock" bands of the past two years (The Strokes, The Vines,
The Hives, etc) were supposed to bring back an era of simplicity, The Darkness
are bringing back the era of drunken arena glam (almost theatrical) rock,
with a helping of pop-sensibility. Believe me when I say that each of these
songs has the ability to become a chart hit, even if most would have to
be censored. Lead singer Justin Hawkins is known for his disturbingly tight unitards
("disturbing unitards" is a redundancy), and his piercing falsetto cuts
through the crunchy riffs of his guitarist/brother Dan Hawkins and bass
player Frankie Poullain in very much the same way Freddie Mercury's wailing
cut through Brian May's guitar and John Deacon's bass. As far as the overall
musicality of the band, everything pretty much grooves together. Drummer
Ed Graham and Frankie lay down thumping beats that just scream hard rock.
Dan Hawkins guitars spit out riffs so crunchy they will chip your teeth.
Justin Hawkins also plays guitar, synthesizer and piano. While his keyboard
work is nothing to write home about, his guitar solos are killer. The most
comment-able aspect of The Darkness's music, though, is Justin's singing
voice. His natural singing voice is reminiscent of The Cure's Robert Smith
if he were wearing very tight pants. For anyone who doesn't know, "falsetto"
means "the voice in a man which lies above his natural voice" (think Monty
Python routines). Justin's falsetto is nearly glass-shattering. You will like this CD if you like to (1) get into your music (2) laugh
at your own goofiness and (3) just f'in ROCK. However, there are a few tracks
that show the mellow side of goofy British glam-pop-metal-rock. "Love Is
Only A Feeling." "Friday Night" and "Holding My Own" slow the metronome
down and give you some nice songs to sway to, rather than the high-kicking,
air-guitaring, David Lee Roth-esque acrobatic gymnastics that come pouring
out of "I Believe In A Thing Called Love." The only complaint I have at
all is the fact that it's only 10 tracks and just over 38 minutes. C'mon
guys, if people are charging $18.99 for a new CD you can at least give me
more than that.