Being from the Washington DC Metropolitan area it should come as no surprise that I'm a big fan of Darkest Hour. I spent a lot of time at the Otto Bar in Baltimore seeing Darkest Hour live. Every one of their records is solid. So I was excited to pick up Human Romance, the bands first on new label E1.
Human Romance doesn't disappoint. Darkest Hour play metalcore as metalcore was meant to be played. Human Romance is heavy. There are no breakdown and no clean vocals.
The guitar solos are clean and well placed. The songs are never one tracked and each track enough sonic changes that the album is enjoyable to listen to. Human Romance avoids being a modern metalcore record where breakdown after breakdown and formulaic screamed verse, clean sung chorus, screamed verse becomes tiresome and boring after a couple of tracks. There aren't guitar solos on every track so the solos that happened are enjoyable. The guitar work overall is very clean, each riff and lead line lending itself to the song.
Human Romance is an album that will translate well live. Te songs move in such a way that will get crowds going as mosh pits turn into circle pits and then everyone stops moshing to scream along.
If you're a long time fan of Darkest Hour, like me, you'll have no problem enjoying this record. If you haven't listened to Darkest Hour this album isn't a bad one to pick up. Fans of As I Lay Dying and Haste the Day will love this album. Human Romance hits on every level. A great metalcore album in a genre full of stale bands.
No comments:
Post a Comment