The Darkness without the schtick equals a really bad hard rock band

The Darkness (photo: Scarlet Page)

The Darkness: the first time we heard this band we thought, “This has to be a joke! This is a joke, right?” Then we got the joke and everything was copacetic. Now, a dozen years after their debut album, the very kick-ass Permission to Land, The Darkness are still going, but the “greatest rock and roll band on Earth” gimmick has been threatening to get old for some time.

When it was announced that the band would be releasing their fourth studio album, Last of Our Kind, certain members of the Rice and Bread team (make that Megan and Jason, who use 2003’s Permission as one of their go-to road trip albums) had high hopes that the British rock band would be returning at the top of their game. As you will see, that was not the case. Not the case at all.

The Album Club:
Jason Schreurs, Rice and Bread Magazine co-founder
Megan Cole, Rice and Bread Magazine co-founder
Blake Morneau, Rice and Bread Magazine contributor
Kevin Wood, founder of This Sandwich, That Beer, Rice and Bread Magazine contributor

The Album:
The Darkness - Last of Our Kind [Kobalt Music].

Jason: So, I guess the first thing I should ask you guys is this: Is there an apology in order for making you listen to this album?

Kevin: Uh, I’m going to say yes. [Laughs]

Blake: Um, every listen is different…. sometimes, yes, sometimes, no.

Jason: I’m not sure how much of the backstory you guys know on this band, but they pegged themselves as being a supergroup when they started, even though no one had ever heard of them, and they decided they were the best band on Earth, with this over the top rock and roll schtick. Their first couple of albums were really good, then they kind of dipped and dived after that, and this new one… um, it’s The Darkness, but I’m not sure they can recapture that initial feeling.

Kevin: I was going to say, I’m not sure if being The Darkness is enough. [Laughs]

Megan: To me, this album is like The Darkness-lite. They’re trying to recapture that old schtick, but it just doesn’t resonate anymore. It doesn’t have that cheesiness that I really liked about the band. It’s like they’re trying to be serious, but keep some of the cheese at the same time.

Jason: Well, they definitely went with the cheese at the beginning of the album with this “Barbarian” intro track, which is just the absolute worst. And then after that they try to slip in some semi-serious songs and the schtick isn’t working. It’s almost like in order to be successful this band has to be completely over the top and totally dumb, and they didn’t really pull it off on this album. They’re just an ordinary rock band.

Kevin: Yeah, it’s just completely ordinary rock and roll. They’re good players and the production was the only thing I thought was really good on this album, but as far as the songs go, from song to song it’s like, “Oh, there’s that other generic rock riff.” There’s really nothing creative on here.

Megan: One of the things I love so much about this band is the lead singer’s voice. He just had this high-pitched wail, especially on Permission to Land, where he hit these notes that sounded like someone had just kicked him in the balls. It was great. But that seems to be really lacking here, and he’s really average on this album.

Kevin: There’s the one track, it might even be the title track, with the big, up and down falsetto chorus. And there’s some of that, which might remind you of what he once was, but by no means is he getting to the range that he used to.

Jason: Blake, you said that sometimes the album was good, and sometimes bad. What did you mean by that?

Blake: I listen to a lot of music on headphones. When I put this on headphones I wanted to stab my eyes out… or maybe my ears so I couldn’t hear it anymore. But when it was on a speaker in the background it was perfectly fine music to not focus on. When I was focused on it, oh man! The lyrics, the ridiculous guitar soloing over and over again…

Jason: I felt the same way. When I wasn’t paying attention, it was totally fine, but as soon as I focused in on it, I was like, “Oh no, this is not cool.”

Blake: I did walk around singing “Last of Our Kind” in that high voice a lot. That was kind of cool.

Jason: I’m always suspicious when any hard rock album has a quasi-ballad on the third song though. That always freaks me out, because it’s way too soon on an album for any kind of ballad. Who would think, “Okay, we’ve done two rockers, and now it’s time for a ballad”? They lost me at that. I almost felt like this was their stab at a Queen album, like, “Let’s do a Queen rock opera album,” and it just fell flat and didn’t work at all.

Kevin: And if they do a ballad, you’d almost prefer it to be the silliest song on the album. That would make it more tolerable, if they dropped into this ballad and that was the song that was real funny, because then it would make it clear why it was here. But it was almost like the ballad was trying to be serious as well.

The Darkness (photo: Scarlet Page)

Jason: Megan, did you hear anything that even remotely resembled “Love on the Rocks with No Ice” on this album? Because that song is the best!

Megan: No, and even the song names don’t have the entertainment value that Permission to Land had. The fact that there’s a song on that album called “Get Your Hands Off My Woman,” followed by the word “motherfucker” in the chorus… that’s missing completely on this album. If you picked it up off a shelf and looked at it, you’d never know that they’d had this cheesy rock background. It just looks like any other rock/pop album.

Blake: “Sarah O Sarah” is one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard. [Laughs] Oh my god, that song! I already have a hard time with songs that are named after a lady, or a guy, it doesn’t matter which, but that one was extra bad for some reason.

Jason: “Roaring Waters” is actually a decent rock song; it’s got a great riff and a lot of other good things going for it, a nice, hard rockin’ song. But then right after that you’ve got “Wheels of the Machine” and ugh, it’s just the worst. They can’t seem to get any momentum on this album and it’s almost as if they came in with a bunch of leftover songs and just threw everything into the pile. There wasn’t much quality control at all on this album.

Kevin: It actually seems like instead of them coming in with all of these old songs, they walked into a studio and the studio had a whole bunch of old rock songs, and they were like, “Oh, we’ll just play these ones, I guess.”

Megan: One of them totally reminded me of Aerosmith.

Jason: Listen to the intro guitar line on “Open Fire” and that’s totally The Cult. There’s no doubt that’s the riff to “She Sells Sanctuary.”

Kevin: Oh, that’s a complete ripoff. There’s no way they could have done that without knowing what they were doing. That was actually the first track I heard off this album before knowing that we’d be talking about it. I heard it on the radio and I was like, “Uh, wait, what’s going on here? Wait a minute…” I think you guys said it already, but it’s the kind of record that if it’s on and you’re not paying attention you could definitely find yourself bobbing your head to it on a few of tracks. If that’s all you’re looking for in music, just some good time rock and roll, well then, alright, I guess The Darkness is for you. But if you’re looking for anything with more substance, or creativity, or anything artistic, then I’d say look elsewhere.

Jason: Part of the problem is that hard rock is so established. You can’t go out and write an album better than AC/DC’s Back in Black, or Queen, or Led Zeppelin. You can’t even write a better album than The Cult’s Electric, which already second-generation hard rock. It can’t be done at this point, because it’s just been done so many times. The Darkness almost got there with their first couple of albums, but you can’t just keep doing that if you’re a hard rock band. You’ve either got to start something new or move on with your life.

Kevin: Yeah, and you can notice that with other hard rock bands of recent years. They come out on the scene as another rock band, something like Velvet Revolver, and people will be like, “Oh, cool!” And then really quickly, it’s like, “Oh wait, it’s just another rock band.” And that’s not taking away anything from what rock and roll is, but it’s a tough one to continually top the stuff that’s been done in the past.

Jason: I like to call it the Audioslave Syndrome.

Blake: Oh! I’ll listen to The Darkness before I listen to Audioslave.

Megan: Maybe not this album though!

Jason: Megan and I rock The Darkness more than the average person does and when we first heard this album we couldn’t figure out if it was the same singer at first. We were like, “Oh shit, they got a different singer!” We were super down and didn’t think it was even worth it to review it, because he’s kind of the star of the band, but then we quickly realized it was the same singer and he’d just lost a lot of his chops, unfortunately.

Kevin: When I first heard the opening track, it reminded me of a somewhat new Weezer song, but it was like what would happen if Rivers Cuomo just started shredding on a song. But it had that same sort of generic riffage of a newer Weezer song. So I could see how this could probably get to radio and be somewhat successful for awhile, but maybe that’s what they’re going for. Who knows.

Jason: I’d like to see these guys live. Seeing now would be a hoot, but I get the feeling that they are way past their prime, and we’ll see them with Weezer and The Cult and all of these washed-up rock bands. Washed Up Fest! That would be sweet. Is there anything else we need to add? We don’t really need to belabour this one, I guess.

Kevin: I think I got out everything I had to say.

Jason: Megan, as a legit The Darkness fan, how are you feeling right now?

Megan: Disappointed. I wanted to see them live, but I don’t think I ever would at this point.

Blake: It’s not the best, it’s not the worst, but it’s pretty close to the worst…

The Darkness‘ Last of Our Kind is available now on Kobalt Music.