The Darkness – Permission To Land

Touching Youhoooeewww….

We’ve all been there. It’s a late night at the local generic rock club, and you see the next band come on stage; middle aged rockers who are well past their prime with their long flowing blonde hair and of course the tight leather pants. As they begin to play, the guitarist shreds as if he’s playing to a packed stadium in Tokyo. The singer flaunts himself around to the thousands of screaming females in his imagination, conjuring up images of the immaculate Spinal Tap. Afterwards you think you should say something, you know – to spare them any more embarrassment. At first listen, that’s sort of the feeling you get from The Darkness’s debut album, Permission to Land. But like some sort of hypnotizing spell, you find yourself wanting more, despite the little voice in the back your mind saying “I actually like this?!”Ah the 80’s. What a time for rock music in general, where the genre truly embraced the ‘rock star’ image. One might have agreed that if The Darkness only debuted twenty years earlier, what a smash success they would have been. After all, 80’s rock isn’t exactly topping the sales charts. But throughout all the glitz and glam the genre entails, there is a certain lost element of ‘fun.’ You know, the sort of fun that had you singing along to Van Halen back in the day. And that’s exactly what The Darkness are all about. With chunky guitar riffs, long and drawn out falsetto vocals and choruses that make you want to sing-a-long, The Darkness aren’t going to change rock and roll, but they just might brighten your view of it.