Here is a quick history of how I found out about Darkest Hour. I had just started looking over victory records bands when I got an email that said I could look over part 1 of a trailer for a new CD. I was intrigued and I went and saw it. I have to say, it was a great trailer and the song in the background was awesome.
The Album was pretty interesting for me since I hadn’t heard much from them. The first song, “With a Thousand Words to Say But One”, had me wanting more for the first 45 seconds then they hit you with the drums and the shredding. I really don’t know how they chose that with the lyrics but the lyrics are great and it takes like 5 to 6 listen throughs to finally start to understand the lyrics without reading them. The second song and first single from the CD is “Convalescence.” This song is the most “mainstream” song on the CD, but that’s not a bad thing in this case. This was a great change in pace and it sounded awesome.
“This Will Outlive Us” and “Sound the Surrender” were decent, they seemed to be missing something. I think they should had added an extra bass guitar or something to give it a little more texture. “Pathos” is the first instrumental and it added an acoustic guitar to the mix and it was mellow. It was a nice break from the intense shredding from the first 4 songs. So far the vocals from John Henry are great and I can easily say that Metal is my kind of music.
“Low” is next and it was missing something that I can't put my finger on. I was hoping another song like “Convalescence” was coming up after Low but I get another instrumental in “Ethos.” The best song from the middle line up is up next in the form of “District Divided.” This drops a lyrical bomb with “we know your plans don‘t include us/that‘s why we‘ve made our own destroyers.”
The bottom of the lineup has to show a little more promise then the middle, don’t get me wrong the middle was great but it was missing something. The bottom line-up delivers a near knockout punch with “These Fevered Times” and “Paradise” then delivered the finisher with a Seven minute long finale in “Tranquil.”
I will have to give this four and a half out of five.
