The Darkness
Pinewood Smile
(Cooking Vinyl)
English hard rockers, The Darkness, continue their renaissance that I believe started with their third album, Hot Cakes. Their new full-length album, Pinewood Smile, is everything we’ve come to know and love about this flamboyant and sometimes deliciously crude quartet.
This is the first full-length album to feature new drummer, Rufus Tiger Taylor (son of Queen drumming legend, Roger Taylor). Taylor did appear on a bonus track on the band’s previous offering, Last Of Our Kind, but he’s given a full track list to shine on this time around, and he does just that.
The opening track, “All the Pretty Girls,†kicks things off with that classic Darkness fun and swagger. In case you didn’t figure it out, it’s about pretty girls. It’s not quite as catchy as “Buccaneers of Hispaniola†which features some wonderful falsetto by the bolt of lightning that is frontman, Justin Hawkins. By the time you get to the third track, “Solid Gold,†you start to sense an actual maturity to their sound and you wonder if the album’s mood will grow more serious. All that changes when the chorus kicks in, which has the band singing, “And we’re never gonna stop, shitting out solid gold.†How can you not enjoy this band?
I found myself humming along to this album after only one spin, but it actually gets even better with each listen. Believe it or not, I can’t come up with what I would consider a throwaway filler track. Aside from the first three tracks, tunes that stood out even more for me were “Why Don’t the Beautiful Cry?†â€Japanese Prisoner of Love,†and “Stampede of Love,†which seems to pleasantly reign in everything with a soothing approach. Of course, in true Darkness form, after a few moments of silence, the band kicks back in full throttle with a fast and heavy riff for a few seconds and then someone yells out “You f***ing c***!â€
Pick this one up immediately!
