Review Summary: This is the final form.
How's your neck? haha I don't mean it like that. Keep reading.
This is no-frills Darko. This is what the post-credits scene in the movie was leading up to. Hot-off-the-hot-***ing-heels of Starfire, it's obvious, the objective of DETHMASK PT 3; skim the foam right off the top. Always keeping things interesting while creating moments to obsess over and force you to hit that Previous button.
As to be expected of the duo, here we're gifted with layer upon beefy layer of soundscape. Betwixt the pulsing electronic background and the razor precision rhythm, there's this wonderful feeling of maniacal nonchalance in the moments where a breath is needed between the unrelenting foray of Tom's tribal chants and Baby J's absolute roller-coaster of a perspective on pacing. Meaning, on the latter, that it's just turning everything up to it's "final form" (which is quoted from one of the many isolated vocal instances that appear).
We're given a short but sweet introduction that provides something of a build-up, but ends in subverted expectations as it leads into MALLET PULSE, psyching you out for a few moments, and then reminding you this is a Darko release and nothing is safe and your neighbors are about to be pretty annoyed with you. And then, when you realize what you're in for, THE CHAIN HAND begins, and wow you just found a new favorite song. The trance pads carrying a mountain of hopeless feelings while hitting you with 90's house, right into the unpredictable-yet-familiar groove of angry sadness. A brief stanza of which could be a chorus, cut short, as if it knows what it is, and doesn't want to outstay its welcome, and goes right back into dropping your balls again wait I thought that couldn't happen a second time?
BLOOD HOST follows, a pop song in an alternate timeline perhaps, as every moment is an earworm. There's some sort of audible narrative here the listener picks up on throughout this runtime that sticks with you, a consistency as thick as molasses, that binds everything together into something thoroughly memorable, and daring to go further, cherished. HAVE YOU EVER delves into this even further, blending various "rap-hop" subtleties with zero-breaths-taken gutterals, and ending by tying the both of them together in an enjoyable breather. SUPRA is able take this moment to string you into a similar environment before decimating things once again, this time taking full advantage of how much these guys give a *** about what's to be expected, turning what should be some sort of typical ending riff into a ***storm of drums and dissonance chords in a pattern that's equal parts chaotic and interpretable.
It's here we're given a second to see the phantom that hides behinds the music since the first track. GIZAMACHI, to me, is what represents what's most enjoyable about these tracks that lay in the background; a black-pilled gaze into the world in the form of a short breakbeat track, coupled with quick cuts of ambient pads that evoke feelings of retrospection and clarity. All the more reason to lead into GRIM REAPER AND A UZI, an exasperated sigh after 20 minutes of aggressive highs and lows, a calm-after-the-storm, so to speak, that polarizes this entire work. It begins with a flange rock beat with vocals from Layzi, almost something you'd hear from Men I Trust (if you don't know them, look up Show Me How) that, on a whim, turns into a ballad the likes of Dino Cazares in only his most numetal dreams could invent. It's an absolute bop, keeping you hooked and looking onwards, a feeling I think the duo absolutely nails getting across. I couldn't imagine a better way to close out this 27 minute runtime.
Suffice to say, Darko has been the sound that I've been licking like one of those comically large rainbow lollipops you'd see in movies, except the lollipop has a ***ing lollipop inside of the lollipop, and this release is no different. If the goal was to move their own goalpost beyond what it already was, they have succeeded, in my book.
