Review Summary: a leader in the worst of 2010.
1 of 2 thought this review was well writtenDark New Day break the five year silence with their Sophomore attempt ‘Vicious Thinking’. With such a long hiatus you’d think the super group would have figured out how to calm down their inconsistent rugged hard rock that was fumbled together for their debut. ‘Vicious Thinking’ sees the band facing an identity crisis of sorts. As brotastic and brutal as the title sounds the band are softer than they’ve ever lead on before. The title track is a sad but perfect example of this; the chords that are strummed with half hearted thunder lead into the weakest chorus presented on this affair. Which is sad to say, because at times they present a very modest rhythm section that is constantly bogged down by a tragic lead guitarist, who offers nothing interesting when it comes to his riffs.
As experimental as the band thought they were being while recording unfortunately is shot by the production stripping away that raw feeling that gave their debut a glimmer of hope in slim sections (see
Brother). Both
Hail Mary and
Saddest Song try using the out of the ordinary whether it be dissonant chords or muffled instruments, any momentum that was insisted upon is lost by the constant need to build things up for the anti-climatic choruses which explode in all the wrong ways.
The album also doesn’t go without its power ballads as seen on
Dear Addie and
On My Way both of which do nothing to further the bands diluted sound. This bring us to the albums biggest fault, for the entire 41 minutes the boys refuse to change up their sound bent on proving they’re a hard rock band with distance separating themselves from the radio waves. The only time they actually hit this mark though is in the middle with
Goodbye a strong vocal performance coupled with an excellent drum section actually helps set this band apart from the multiple other bands writing the exact same songs.
All in all Dark New Day return with a more than lackluster affair. With terrible song writing both lyrically and musically the question arises as to why this is considered a super group?
