EP Review: The Dark - The Dark
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
The Dark (the record) is the debut release from The Dark (the band) who formed when vocalist Craig Johns, Jnr and Of Mice & Men guitarist, Alan Ashby, decided the moral corruption of modern Los Angeles needed a soundtrack.
Recruiting the rhythm section of Shots Heard Around the World drummer, Derek Vautrinot and bassist Nick Goins, the four-piece are about to issue the self-titled five-track EP on an unsuspecting world.
A good sixty percent of the music of The Dark has already been heard, with the first three tracks having seen action as pre-release singles.
Chemicals opens with a mythic chant, before being drowned out by the kicks and triggers of some seriously heavy electronic percussion. Though citing the likes of White Zombie and Nine Inch Nails as influential, The Dark’s is a more humanistic industrialisation; the beats are emotive rather than mechanical, the pulsing that of a flesh-heart, rather than a metallic pump.
The following Slip Away lands with a more overt electronic face, heavy riffs and a sweeping chorus feel modern and a little destructive; the later Circles is pure Industrial metal, the whole edifice shakes and pounds with some of the most metallic riffs on show here.
Some of the metalcore elements that have been Alan’s bread and butter day job for many years start to creep in, as does a less hip-hop sounding influenced Nu metal. In Heaven There’s Nothing to See closes the short, fifteen-minute running time, but it is the centrepiece of Head of the Snake that will set tongues a-wagging, with its protean weave of Crosses-like fragility and aggressive low-end assault.
Having already found some success with the early salvos – Chemicals was given its world premier on Daniel P Carter’s BBC Radio 1 Rock Show – leading to over two-hundred thousand Spotify streams with the first month, and a booking for this year’s Vans Warped Tour to look forward to, 2025 could well be The Dark’s year.
As an opening shot, The Dark (the record) promises many good things to come from this four-piece, and can be heard as something of an overture for what the band will create next.
