Darkest Hour – Perpetual | Terminal
Release Date: 23rd February 2024
Label: MNRK Heavy
Bandcamp
Genre: Metalcore, Melodic Death Metal.
FFO: Unearth, Killswitch Engage, Shadows Fall.
Review By: Jeff Finch
My first real introduction to Darkest Hour was on their most recent offering Godless Prophets & the Migrant Flora, an album that, right out of the gate, hit listeners with unrepentant aggression and never let up. So, after a near 7-year wait, to say hype was high might be a bit of an understatement. And after having listened to the album in full, multiple times, over the course of the past few weeks, suffice it to say that Darkest Hour didn’t lose a step.
What tends to separate Darkest Hour from the rest of the ‘metalcore’ pack out there is that they tend to lean towards the more aggressive soundscapes but don’t sacrifice melody for the sake of heavy; opener and title track Perpetual Terminal is the perfect display of this. Opening with a clean guitar melody for nearly the first full minute, Darkest Hour lulls listeners before hitting them with an onslaught of thrash, double bass percussion and blistering riffs the backdrop for the hardcore wails of John Henry, the band segueing back into the initial guitar melody for the chorus as the vocals take on a slightly less aggressive approach, a guitar solo providing a bit of breathing room as the band shifts into acoustics, a brief lull before a final barrage hits us as the track comes to a close.
While also serving as the first track released in years, what opener Perpetual Terminal does is set the tone for the record: intensity, melody, tempo shifts and time signature changes, sound transitions keeping listeners on their toes while they anxiously await the next track. In that sense, Societal Bile is the perfect response to the title track, a barely three minute hardcore bruiser, almost never relenting in its pace or its aggression, the drum fills perplexing and technical as they shift in and out of blast beats and double bass, the riffs there to chug and lead us to breakdown at the 2/3 mark, a chest caving moment where Henry’s vocals shift to even more vitriolic and acerbic, the music keeping to the downtuned, slower pace while acid is spit at us.
Mausoleum is a banger of a track that demonstrates how Darkest Hour is not one to simply rehash every song over and over, the first minute and a half an acoustic number complete with excellent clean vocals, shifting in intensity as Henry’s shouts of ‘mausoleum’ became more and more pained, just as the drums enter the fold and the vocal tones transform into agonized shouting, the pace unwavering until the group segues back into the initial acoustic guitar and clean vocals, one final shift back to the aggression as a guitar solo rips through the speakers to end the track on a perfectly epic note, the song an amalgamation of what the group can do at any moment.
Though I’m not one for filler tracks, with an album containing this type of intensity, the need was there to give our ears a slight break, a moment of reprieve to take a breath and prepare for the final half onslaught; here, Amor Fati works brilliantly, a sub two minute guitar solo, to keep it simple. Nothing really fancy or outlandish hits us in this track, just a clean, beautiful soundscape to cleanse the palate for the final few songs, and it works brilliantly, as direct follower Love is Fear is an unremorseful ass beater of a track, not even breaking the three-minute mark, an unwaveringly destructive track meant only to demolish everything in its path.
And in a brilliant move, Darkest Hour does save some of the best for last, as the final track Goddess of War, Give Me Something to Die For checks all the boxes of what the band can and does offer; clean acoustic passages, brilliant clean solos with fretwork freneticism and gorgeous melody, punishing riffs and double bass percussive assault, a throat shredding vocal performance full of venom and vitriol. While some bands like to leave the last track to give its listeners a chance to wind down as the album comes to a close, Darkest Hour decided to give its fans something to remember from its closer, a six-minute epic whose guitar solo goes right to the end, rewarding fans for staying with them for all this time, giving them their absolute finest after having demonstrated for the previous ten tracks that they haven’t lost a step, giving us all a reason to rejoice, as the future is brighter than ever for these metal legends.
(4.5 / 5)
