With their debut album Permission To Land, The Darkness enlivened a rock music scene dominated by the likes of The White Stripes, The Strokes, Evanescence, and Linkin Park amongst others. Their goofy lyrics and AC/DC, Thin Lizzy, and Queen sound struck a chord and twenty-two years later they are still at it with the release of their eighth record Dreams On Toast (Cooking Vinyl).

“Rock and Roll Party Cowboy” opens the album in a typically emphatic fashion, it is stomping Hard Rock about a stereotypical rock and roll bad boy – replete with a hearty hair metal riff. “I Hate Myself” is a hoot, a Glam Rock jaunt in celebration of self-loathing that has permanently made itself at home in my head. “Walking Through Fire” is a rock anthem about the Sisyphean life of a rock band, that rises to arena stradling heights and is over in under three minutes. 

Dreams on Toast does not hang about, it gets straight to the heart of the matter and is out of the door in under 34 minutes. It is the sound of a band not trying to please anyone but themselves, and the results are an assured and confident LP with a pleasing amount of variety. Single “The Longest Kiss” is a case in point, a jolly mixture of perky Beatles pop and 1970s Queen that sounds both familiar, yet fresh. 

“Hot On My Tail” is a left-field number, a bouncy, largely acoustic sixties pop tune about that most common of topics – a putrid fart ruining date night. Their irreverence and humour is here to stay and thankfully this time it steers clear of Steel Panther pastiche. The catchy “Mortal Dread” is a rollicking rocker about having a midlife existential crisis, and “The Battle For Gadget Land” is a hard and heavy take on modern life with a posh-style breakdown towards the end (it’s not as horrid as it sounds). 

Dreams On Toast is a taut demonstration of what these lads from Suffolk do best, unabashedly light-hearted Hard Rock.

Buy it here:
https://thedarkness.lnk.to/dreamsontoastPR

8 / 10
THOMAS THROWER
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