Darkest Hour did something new with their latest album
Undoing Ruin. They made metalcore, only without the core. I’d read many, many reviews on this prior to firing up my P2P program and downloading it, and believe me, I read them well. Some were biased (I’m looking at you, Kripes.: p) some were fair, and some sucked. So, against my better judgement, I got this piece of “poser” metalcore.
All that said, it’s still a great album. Catchy riffs, heavy-ass drums, and great barked vocals meld perfectly to make this baby. There are some really great tracks. As a matter of fact, they are all good, and yet very boring. But at the same time, interesting. Confused? Pick up the album. That’s all I can really say for now. But on to the good and the bad:
The Good:
The Vocals
Vocalist John Henry has a very Mikeal Stanne (Dark Tranquillity) like voice. It’s phlegmy, yet mot disgusting. It crafts a nice atmosphere, and it’s a great metalcore voice. Then again, it does say the same throughout the entire album, and you may end up getting awfully sick of it.
The Guitar
The two guitarists Kris Norris and Mike Schleibaum aren’t very technically proficient, but they craft some great melodies and some seriously brutal riffs. At times, the guitar parts become tedious and repetitive, albeit quite rarely.
Convalescence and Paradise
The single of the album, “Convalescence” is a powerful mainstream metal song with some pop-punk influences. Pop-punk hater though I am, I still love the song endlessly. Its half-sung chorus of:
“Oh confinement binds you and nothing scares me nothing thrills me
I've fooled myself into believing that nothing ails me
nothing kills me”
is catchy as hell, and it’s a damn good thing it’s repeated. Even the poppy chords at the beginning of the song are lovable. If you are going to download on song off of this album, make it “Convalescence.”
The latter song, “Paradise”, would be an exquisite choice for a second single. It is also somewhat mainstream, it involves power chords, and is overall one of the greatest songs I have ever heard by a NWOAHM band. As usual, John is at the top of his game vocally, the guitars are fairly simple and yet heavy. Overall, it’s great.
The Bad:
The Bass
I feel very, very sorry for Darkest Hour’s bassist Paul Burnette. He is drowned out completely in every single song on this album. There’s not much else I can say about the bass, as I can’t hear a single note of it.
The Drums
Here’s the problem with nearly every non-death metal band: bad drumming. Trivium, Carcass, In Flames, Unearth, and He Is Legend all suffer from this ailment. Being somewhat of a drummer myself, I really appreciate some crazy fills, blast beats or even double bass rolls. Oh no though, none of that for this band. Ryan Parrish seems perfectly content with his “do ca” (bass drum-snare) beat, as he utilizes it on each and every track.
With A Thousand Words To Say But One
I’ll be perfectly honest with all of you: I honestly hate this song. It tries to hard to be melodic death metal and fails nearly completely. It sounds like a crappy rip-off of a two-bit Dark Tranquillity song. A VERY crappy rip-off.
Repetitiveness
On
Undoing Ruin, every song sounds similar, if not exactly the same. The two guitarists put the same method of riffing in most songs, with the exception of the aforementioned “Convalescence”. John’s vocals are indeed redundant in many of the songs, and the bass and drums are nearly always below the norm of this genre.
THE VERDICT
Well, after I listened to this for the first time, a 56% seemed very, very appropriate. The next time, 79% seemed just peachy. Well, now that I’ve written this review, and rid myself of a few opinions that were aching to escape, a
76%
seems appropriate.
Mazzetti
*Resubmitted after the crash*
