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Artist: Michelle
Darkness |
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End of Eden member Michelle Darkness has literally put his heart and solo into this his first solo project ‘Brand New Drug’. This Gothic Rock is heavy dosed with Darkness’s unmistakable vocals. He also plays all the instruments on the album and is only assisted along the way by Hanna Pakarinen on the cover of Joy Divisions ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart' and Midnattol’s Christian Hector on the track 'Forgotten Sun', but apart from these two collaborations it's Darkness all the way. From the opener ‘My Sweet’ you're instantly drawn the similarity of Michelle’s vocals to that of Andrew Eldritch of The Sisters of Mercy fame, but Michelle is far more than just another Gothic clone. He takes a more direct approach to the darkside combining some very sombre moments alongside some slightly more rockier ones. The album continues its darkened path with the title track ‘Brand New Drug’, a real raucous piece of Gothic Rock with a real catchy beat that will have you tapping your feet along. That together with some rather fine guitar moments make this track one of the highlights on the album for me. 'Raging Fire' is another great song which is filled with those mood ridden dark vocals. This one leads nicely into the cover of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, the classically timeless Joy Division song which is given a complete makeover as Darkness puts his own more solemn spin on it, while adding another dimension to the song by bringing in the added twist with the haunting vocals of Pakarinen. The tempo is brought straight back up with ‘Darklandcity’, again bringing more guitars into the mix before bringing it all back down with the heavy bass, thumping drums and heavy baritone vocals on ‘Dopecrawler’. 'Pet Semetary’ is a little tongue in cheek gothic number which once again shows another side to Darkness’s Gothic Rock style. This is where the album takes a definite step closer to being the perfect Gothic album, with the black metal vocal stylings of ‘Shine On’ and the melancholy of ‘The Dawn’. Perhaps one of the most outstanding tracks on the album has to be the other cover version, Simon and Garfunkel's 'The Sound Of Silence', where once again it gets that special Darkness treatment and he takes another timeless classic and completely turns it into his own. With the album almost at a close Darkness shows another side to his vocal repertoire with the innocent tones of ‘Angelsong’, before bringing the whole thing to a close with subliminal soundings on ‘Forgotten Sun’. The
mixing of tempo’s and taking classics and turning them completely on
their heads makes this a must have album for fans of the Gothic Rock
genre and anyone who likes to walk on the darkside from time to time.
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Tracklisting:
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All content copyright of The Mayfair Mall Zine unless otherwise stated. |
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