Review Summary: More like Winter of Darkness...
The title of Demon Hunter’s 2004 sophomore record is about half-right:
Summer of Darkness is certainly dark. Not really br00tal, for all you metalheads scoring along at home, or dark as in Stevie Wonder wandering around a pitch black room at midnight, but needless to say, there are no a capella choruses of “Kumbaya” to be found on
Summer of Darkness. With song titles such as “Beheaded,” “Annihilate the Corrupt,” and “Coffin Builder,” plus album art featuring a cow skull with a bullet through its head and a black-and-white photo of the band digging graves, Demon Hunter is pretty much screaming here, “Yeah, that’s right; we don’t ****ing mess around, man!” Of course, Demon Hunter is a Christian band, so they wouldn’t really say “****ing,” but I think you catch my drift.
However, this is anything but a fun summer record to bebop along to with all your kiddie friends at the beach while you drink Sunny Delight and make sand castles. As low, chugging guitars slog away in mid-tempo for close to an hour and vocalist Ryan Clark does his best impression of a more literate and well-spoken Frankenstein,
Summer of Darkness seems more inclined for those times when you’re digging your car out from ten inches of snow and your ice scraper breaks and you want to punch somebody or something
so bad, but the nearest punchable objects are either glass windows or members of the wrestling team and you don’t really feel that it would be terribly constructive to punch either of those objects, so you just bottle up your rage inside and pray that summer comes in the next few months or that, at the very least, there’s a Wal-Mart within walking distance of your car. Or something.
So, yes,
Summer of Darkness is not an album that will put you in a terribly good mood. Yes, I know, the metullz by nature are not as predisposed to lifting people’s spirits as much as, say, John Denver or Up with People, but the bigger problem with
Summer of Darkness is that it’s terribly uneven and at times monotonous and boring. In a sense, this was Demon Hunter’s attempt at an epic album and it failed rather miserably in that regard. The band’s biggest strengths – Clark’s singing voice and the successful intertwining of melodic choruses to go along with the screamed verses – are downplayed ever so slightly in favor of an emphasis on trying to be really, really hardcore. This would have worked out wonderfully, except Demon Hunter’s guitars here lack any sort of technicality (it’s not something they would even really attempt until 2005’s
The Triptych) and Clark is a rather mediocre screamer. Not bad, mind you, but the frequent appearances from guest vocalists such as The Agony Scene’s Mike Williams and Killswitch Engage’s Howard Jones on
Summer of Darkness often show up Clark’s somewhat bland and unimaginative delivery. On top of that, the album is too long; it doesn’t quite drag on in a
Lord of the Rings-esque manner, but with each song sounding almost exactly as the last,
Summer of Darkness needed to be trimmed by at least two songs and 8-10 minutes.
Despite those flaws,
Summer of Darkness is still an enjoyable album because, really, there are few metalcore bands that pull off the “sing” in the sing/scream dynamic better than Demon Hunter. While Clark’s screaming may come off as uninspired, his melodic voice is one of the best in the genre and is capable of injecting life into otherwise dormant choruses. The points where
Summer of Darkness is strongest are also the points where Clark is at his best melodically, such as the chorus of “Annihilate the Corrupt” or the semi-ballad “I Play Dead.” As there is a dearth of variety on the disc and the rest of the band fails to make a large impression (though drummer Jesse Sprinkle is at times excellent), Demon Hunter’s success here pretty much rests on the shoulders of Clark’s singing voice and the quality of the hooks (that’s right – hooks, not breakdowns) producer Aaron Sprinkle is able to coax out of the band. The single “Not Ready to Die” and gloomy “The Awakening” reach that goal nicely; the stale “Everything Was White” and overlong “Beauty Through the Eyes of a Predator” do not.
Summer of Darkness is probably best viewed as a snapshot of a band still trying to figure out and best utilize their strong points. On their next two albums, 2005’s
The Triptych and 2007’s
Storm the Gates of Hell, Demon Hunter embraced their above-average sense of melody and also figured out how to do some mildly interesting things with their guitars.
Summer of Darkness doesn’t match the level of those two records because of a glaring lack of technicality and a overriding sense of gloom that very nearly overruns the disc. However, there are enough hooks and singable choruses here to hold the interest of fans of Killswitch Engage and Slipknot, as well as perhaps followers of Korn and Linkin Park. Mildly recommended, but don’t start here if you’re looking for a proper introduction to the band.
Recommended Tracks:
Not Ready to Die
Our Faces Fall Apart
Annihilate the Corrupt
