My own private Emocide

“undoing ruin” is the latest release of darkest hour - another one of the ‘metal core’ bands in the vein of combos like killswitch engage and unearth, which have been around for quite a while now.
metal core always was a bit suspicious to me, being a hardcore kid of the mid 90s - i am a strict believer of the theory that the ‘core’ label has to be earned, never given. however, darkest hour used to be one of the bands back in the day i liked and enjoyed listening to anyway. by now there are so many bands that sound like they were put together on the same assembly line of one of the neo-metal labels - they have been spreading out on the mainstream market in the last 3-4 years like a plague. darkest hour so far still managed to preserve a somewhat “raw” and hardcore-ish flavor - this is one of the things i miss most on this new album: it sounds too clean cut.
something else i don’t understand is the label choice of some bands that are - or at least have formerly been - known to be critical in their beliefs. how does this go along with a record company which really doesn’t care much about artists, art and respect in general? but then again: darkest hour’s lyrics aren’t really all that exciting any more either - or is it just me, who doesn’t get that all these metal cliche lyrics are indeed clever metaphors? who knows…
some might say that lamb of god producer devin townsend sharpened the edge of this band - to me this album took it off even more: you get the mandatory metal-guitar-craziness, tempo changes, dark lyrics - plenty of circle pit and mosh material. and the d.c. boys don’t actually do a bad job at what they are doing - it is just too sterile sounding. i have to give the band one big commendation though: there is no linkin park-ish sissy-singing on this record, while still keeping a pretty emotional atmosphere throughout the album. if you just want to give it a quick listen, i recommend you check out the last song on the tracklist “tranquil”: it much like the rest of the album crushes about everything in its way - if only there was a little less guitar twiddling…
in terms of a metal release this definitely will find a big crowd drooling over the riffs and banging their heads - hospitals stock up on whiplash cuffs!

total: 2 out of 5