![]() ![]() I don’t always skip these songs, but I don’t feel too bad when I do. Don Doty’s vocals are just a rapid-fire “jabba-jabba-jabba” like an TV informercial salesman rushing through all the terms and conditions. The guitars lose any semblance of musical notes and become an angle-grinder. The snare registers as a weightless popping sound. It’s a miracle he still has a heartbeat, and maybe he doesn’t.įast metal is boring, and these songs are Darkness Descend’s least exciting moments. Drummer Gene Hoglan was famous for slamming No-Doz before a show and just beating his kit into scrap metal. Unbelievably, these songs were actually performed faster live. The most excessive tracks are “Darkness Descends”, “The Burning of Sodom”, and “Perish in Flames” which are around 250 beats per minute. Like Reign in Blood, Darkness Descends is very, very, very fast. Although Darkness Descends edges out Reign in Blood in quality and heaviness, Gene Hoglan would often mourn the fact that the label couldn’t get Darkness Descends out sooner than November 1986, by which time they were derided as “Slayer babies”. Slayer is an even more immediate touchstone. Jim Durkin was a big NWOBHM fan, and “Merciless Death” opens with a tribute to Iron Maiden’s Steve Harris. “Black Prophecies” is the band’s attempt at a Master of Puppets style epic, and there’s Hetfieldian touches throughout – like how the title track has that descending-power-chord-over-choppy-riff trick straight out of “Disposable Heroes”. There’s also a surprising Metallica influence. They barely hold together, and constantly seem on the verge of exploding like tempered glass. Dark Angel weren’t the first to point in that direction and they never played death metal themselves (their career ended on a different milestone, the tech-thrash Time Does Not Heal), but once you get here, Scream Bloody Gore, Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse become inevitable. And although the seven tracks are still songs, they’re also less than songs. The riffs are a speed-picked blur, the sound of a guitar sawing through metal. Although it’s still thrash – the vocals are barked but not growled, the guitars are just a semitone down, and the drums lack the intimate, in-the-room quality of early death metal – you can still see that by 1986 we were ready to leave thrash behind. ![]() It’s a good example of pre-death metal (dying metal?). ![]() It’s less an album than a signpost: mankind went this far into hell and no further. Darkness Descends is the Tsar Bomba of metal: decades old, technologically obsolete, but still (in some ways) unsurpassed. Even in 2021 it’s a shock and affront, a pile of little limbs, a terrifying journey that no combination of programmed drums and Protooled guitar tracks can replicate. What’s not to love? Five stars out of five.1986’s Darkness Descends was one of the most extreme metal albums of its age. Dark Angel broke the mold with meaner, nastier music, longer tracks, and even cooler album art. Bands like Poison were considered metal back then. Overall, this is an exceptional album, especially considering it was made in the aesthetic no-man’s-land known as year 1986. Nothing was sacred, and Dark Angel left no taboo unsung. Throughout the album, the subject matter ranges from religious hypocrisy, to horrors of war, and even the indignity of life-support. The most memorable track is The Burning Of Sodom, which has the catchiest melody, most brutal instrumentation, and most subversive lyrics. Headbang-worthy rhythms would shift into faster mosh riffs, and Don Doty’s voice ranges from throaty growls to higher pitched screams. Part of the stylistic appeal of Darkness Descends was its unpredictable nature. Gene Hoglan is a beast on the skins, considered by many to be one of the best in thrash. When the drums are emphasized, however, all hell breaks loose. The drumming, although exemplary, is often overshadowed by furious guitar hooks and Don Doty’s outstanding vocals. The bass lines maintain a subtle but pervasive groove. Much heavier and faster than their contemporaries, Dark Angel are masters of their craft, and Darkness Descends was a definitive album both for the band and the genre. All the power and fury of death metal, plus the fast-paced aggression of punk rock, results in this phenomenal album. ![]()
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