Band: Darkest Hour
Album title: The Human Romance
Label: Century Media Records
Distributor: EMI
Release date: 07/03/2011
Release: Ltd. Edition CD Digipak, CD Jewelcase and Digital Download

Darkest Hour is an American Melodic Death Metal band from Washington, D.C.. The band was formed on September 23, 1995 and initially consisted of vocalist John Henry, guitarist Mike Schleibaum, bassist Raul Mayorga and drummer Matt Maben. The band released its first EP called “The Misanthrope” in 1996 on a local label called Death Truck Records. Unfortunately for them, the band didn’t succeed to break trough early in their career and only received acclaim for their three latest albums.
The new album (entitled “The human Romance”) will be produced by guitarist Peter Wichers from Soilwork and will hit the streets on the 7th of March. The band brings forth some kind of melodic death metal. Metal = yes, melodic = yes, but death? Here I have some serious doubts about. It sounds more like metalcore and new wave of American metal and can be compared to bands like “All that Remain”.
The most valuable element on this record is also their biggest weakness. The vocals coming forth from John Henry’s throat. He does his job and does it well, but the sound of his voice sounds almost exactly the same as the voice of the singer from “Sanctity”. It’s a pity that he doesn’t have an original voice of his own, but the familiar sound will keep people listening trying to find out who he sounds like. The rest of these musicians work isn’t that bad at all but also don’t feel like they’re bringing something new that we never heard before. And that’s the best conclusion. It’s a fairly good album that stands out from the average, but not that much and will be appreciated to newcomers in the metal genre, but also will be appreciated by the more veteran defenders of the genre.

87/100

Jeroen.