Ready to feel old? It’s been almost 20 years since The Darkness released the crowning musical achievement of the 2000s, Permission to Land (2003). By the way, I’m not joking when heaping such praise upon an album. In a sea of pretentious, Lollapalooza ready indie rock dogshit, The Darkness’ combination of power pop hooks, glam rock bombast, and English humor was a breath of fresh air. Before you knew it, Darkness mania had swept the globe, with “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” cracking charts everywhere, the band becoming festival headliners, and music journalists labelling them “the saviors of rock n’ roll”. Much like every other band given this weighty label, The Darkness crashed and burned not long after.
And much like every band that crashes and burns, The Darkness would eventually reconvene to the delight of rockers everywhere, playing the same festivals they once headlined (albeit slotted lower) and releasing a string of decent albums which paled in comparison to Permission to Land. Their rise, fall, and subsequent resurrection is about as cliché as the music they’ve been cranking out for close to two decades. But unlike other rock bands who try to downplay these clichés under the guise of seriousness (which ends up making them look even more cliché in the long run), The Darkness embraces them with open arms, as evidenced by their latest studio offering, Motorheart.
Now considering the stark similarity between each Darkness album (There haven’t been any forays into prog rock…yet), I probably could’ve reviewed Motorheart without even listening to it. However, I’m glad I did, because while it doesn’t hold a candle to their classic debut, there are a handful of killer songs throughout. The title track and “Nobody Can See Me Cry” might be the world’s first motörcharged power pop songs, with their amphetamine fueled riffing and sugar coated melodies. The big and brash “It’s Love, Jim” sounds like something off a PG-13 comedy soundtrack circa 2006, while “Sticky Situations” comes off as Electric Light Orchestra if they had formed in the 2000s instead of the 70s. My choice cut is the closing track on the standard edition, “Speed of the Nite Time”, which is one part AOR, one part goth rock, and all parts retro awesomeness.
Being a sucker for punishment, I decided to check out the “deluxe edition” of Motorheart, which features three bonus tracks: “You Don’t Have to Be Crazy About Me…But It Helps”, “It’s a Love Thang (You Wouldn’t Understand)”, and “So Long”. Like 99.9% of bonus tracks, they’re completely unnecessary. “Crazy” is OK, I guess. The riffs and grooves sound lifted from Led Zeppelin’s “The Ocean”, but I’m sure Zeppelin lifted it from some obscure blues musician. The latter two come off as trite and juvenile even by The Darkness standards, as does regular album cuts like “Welcome Tae Glasgae” and “Eastbound”.
The ratio of rockers to duds is enough to save Motorheart from sheer mediocrity. I’d go as far to say it’s a step up from their last couple outings, but who cares about my opinion? The Darkness certainly doesn’t. They gave up “givin’ a fuck” in 2003. To think they’d start givin’ one now is laughable.
6 out of 10
Label: Cooking Vinyl
Genre: Hard Rock
For fans of: Slade, Motörhead, Steel Panther