English glam rock quartet, The Darkness, raise cliché and buffoonery to a questionable level of art on their fourth album, Last of Our Kind.
The group, fronted by brothers Justin and Dan Hawkins, is firmly in swaggering form on this self-produced recording.
To say that The Darkness is contrived is stating the obvious but it’s down to how serious they or their audience take themselves. Hard rock pageantry is all over Last of Our Kind – high-pitched wails, shrieking solos and pointless lyrics. The group is technically skilled but the content is so extreme that its silliness begs consideration. They’re so over the top that suspension of disbelief is necessary.
The title song is a slice of British heavy rock circa 1973, but with bands like Judas Priest still working the boards is this really needed? Justin Hawkins indulges in vocal excess for its own sake throughout but that seems to be the point of this group. Spectacle, wanking and musical extravagance are the norm.
The group is a polarizing unit. If you can handle their ridiculousness and tasteless displays and enjoy the snippets of interesting passages that they trot out, then this is good fun. But if you aren’t down with over-the-top musical theatrics as a constant, move on.
The rip-off quotient becomes annoying. They steal shamelessly from The Cult on Open Fire and it’s an exercise in pointlessness.
Barbarian deals with the Viking invasion of England, something Led Zeppelin covered to great effect on the Immigrant Song. Barbarian is just bone-headed hard rock subject matter, not even interesting.
The Darkness can rock with energy (Roaring Waters) but they shoot themselves in the foot with tricks – the entertainment factor fades. The group even has a revolving door of drummers. Their latest, Emily Dolan-Davies, joined in time to record this album then quit to be replaced by Rufus Tiger Taylor. She was preceded by several, of course. No one has choked on someone else’s vomit, yet. The band is in Spinal Tap land, where silliness sells.
Where the Tap is enjoyable, this is pointless.
– Dean Gordon-Smith is a musician who reviews the latest music releases for The Morning Star Friday.
