Albums•November 29, 2011•17,918 views

Darkest Hour Undoing Ruin

01. With A Thousand Words To Say But One 02. Convalescence 03. This Will Outlive Us 04. Sound The Surrender 05. Pathos 06. Low 07. Etho 08. District Divided 09. These Fevered Times 10. Paradise 11. Tranquil

2005 Victory Records

Our score 8

by Michael Gluck

6/27/2005

If you count The Misanthrope and The Prophecy Fulfilled, Undoing Ruin is Virginia-based Darkest Hour's sixth album. And while both have their moments with a handful ofmemorable, albeit basic songs, their two earliest albums are justly considered light years behind the niche they found (or began properly plagiarizing) on their 2000 classic thrash piece-de-resistance Mark Of The Judas; considered by many to be their proper debut. Their newest, Undoing Ruin, shares a number of elements in common with that album, and since it is largely considered a flawless album, the commonalities are beneficial. Track five, "Pathos," is an acoustic interlude, harking back to the one on Judas. This adds a nice pause in the furious emotion present in the preceding songs, preparing the listener for more metal ahead, provided the listener listens to the album from start to finish as it is best advised. Undoing Ruin also shares in common with Judas the lesson in European metal riffs which seemed to have begun eluding the band on their last two albums, as they meandered more into the territory of either pure speed or drawn-out textures rather than straight-forward melodic picking which has thankfully returned. This is attributed to the settling-in of Kris Norris, guitar wiz-kid who also wrote and fronted Locus Factor, a band very similar to Darkest Hour although less emotional but more classical metal guitar-oriented. Every Darkest Hour fan should own their album Between Saviors And Thieves; I would even go so far as to call it a partial Darkest Hour album in its own right. The solos in "Sound The Surrender" and "These Fevered Times" (which break open the scales in ways never heard from Darkest Hour) is most visibly Norris' influence as a songwriter, even though he was credited as a member on 2003's Hidden Hands Of A Sadist Nation, but not nearly as confident a guitarist then as he is today. He probably has the years of being a component in the Darkest Hour touring machine to thank for that. Norris' addition to the band also seems to have spurred on founding guitarist Mike Schleibaum to think back to his older material for reference on Undoing Ruin, as the guitar quality has truly been stepped up for this album. Sadly, Swedish uber-producer Frederik Nordstrom did not give Darkest Hour the production job that Victory's double-digit investment tried to buy on Hidden Hands..., and along with the sometimes choppy songwriting, resigned the album to the bottom of many fans' favorite lists. And ironically, while the man who has literally mastered the art of over-the-top heavy metal, Devin Townsend, practically ruined certain albums with his muddy production, he's stepped up to the plate here. He's given Darkest Hour their best studio sound since Judas, taking a simple approach by bringing the guitars front and most noticeably, giving Ryan Parrish the bare-bones drum sound he has always benefited from and which he didn't get on Hidden Hands. Darkest Hour is an extremely hard working band, with five albums released in seven years and seemingly endless touring. Dreams of rock stardom and indulgences in debilitating substances have drastically diminished the quality of numerous hardcore metal bands over the years. There are a myriad of bands whose skill and songwriting ability became either gradually or suddenly undermined by a contagious "desire to evolve." It's refreshing that Darkest Hour have changed little in their formula over the years, a gift wrongly interpreted by critics as a curse who accuse the band of each song sounding the same. What once sounded virtually uniform, the harsh vocals of John Henry, now incorporate a bit of low-note singing as on "Convalescence" and "Paradise"; but for the most part, he is the Henry of old. The lyrics this time around are less politically reactionary as on Hidden Hands and more rooted in personal experience, a characteristic likely to increase their appeal. Bottom Line: It is widely known that this is slated to be and thus will be Darkest Hour's defining album for the thousands of new fans who are about to discover them. Luckily for their loyalists, they can remain on board as well, as the band rises to underground stardom and eventually even higher, because what little tweaks they have brought in (like the use of keys in "Sound The Surrender"'s epic chorus, or Kris Norris' classical metal soloing throughout the album) merely add to their sound rather than define it. Six albums in, if you were a fan of Darkest Hour then, you're still a Darkest Hour fan.

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TRAILER_ 6/24/2005 7:51:26 PM

The follow up to the ECard trailer is up on Victory now, with a new song.

Darkest Hour Undoing Ruin

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