Darkest Hour Undoing Ruin CD

Darkest Hour: John Henry (vocals, drums); Kris Norris (guitar, acoustic guitar); Mike Schleibaum (guitar); Paul Burnette (bass guitar); Ryan Parrish (drums).
Additional personnel: David Young (piano, keyboards).
Audio Producer: Devin Townsend.
On Undoing Ruin, Washington, D.C.'s Darkest Hour continue to refine their metalcore attack, bringing a bit more dynamic range and added complexity to their arrangements but otherwise leaving their time-tested, searing roar intact. The most notable step forward is taken by singer/screamer John Henry, who takes a welcome break from his usual lyrical attack on such fish-in-a-barrel subjects as government duplicity, crass commercialism, and religious hypocrisy and turns his formidable lung capacity inward, addressing more intimate issues related to change and personal progress. Lines like "If we can make it through the landslide standing/We'll lift each other up to see the bliss on the horizon" read more like something from the Rocket Summer than from any of Darkest Hour's more obvious musical predecessors, but the band's mosh-pit faithful don't need to worry -- Henry screams those lines as if his skin is being peeled off, and on "This Will Outlive Us" he plays a probably inadvertent vocal tribute to fellow Washingtonian H.R. The guitars of Kris Norris and Mike Schleibaum just get bigger and more flashy with every album, to the point that they're starting to flirt with prog rock complexity; on tracks like "Convalescence" and "These Fevered Times" their contrapuntal twin solos walk that very, very thin line between "Dude!" and "Dude, is that the new Asia album?" Recommended. ~ Rick Anderson
Though the members of Darkest Hour had been slugging it out for many years before the release of this 2005 effort, their first to crack the BILLBOARD Top 200 charts, their music changed little over time. UNDOING RUIN is tight, uncompromising '80s-style thrash paired with howling metal-core vocals. Furiously speedy double-bass drumming drives virtually every song, with the requisite half-time mosh parts arriving in the perfect places. Six-stringers Kris Norris and Mike Schleibaum perfectly evoke the NWOBHM-influenced twin-guitar attacks of yore, revealing a well developed sense of melody. Vocalist/screamer John Henry spews lyrics filled with themes of desperation and general alienation in a throaty, howling rasp. Firmly rooted in the old-school speedy stuff but with contemporary vocals, UNDOING RUIN is punchy, melodic metal of a substantial sort.