Over the course of ten fast and frantic years DARKO have become an integral part of the punk scene’s rich tapestry. It has been a relentless, no-holds-barred type of decade with the band leaving a fine trail of vinyl (and slayed stages) in their wake. Returning with their latest release, the feisty five-track EP Greyscale, DARKO are very much here and setting the standard which others can only hope to obtain.
There’s nothing quite like the sound of a melodic hardcore in full flight; it is at once ferocious but also very mosh friendly. When the two are mixed right the combination can be fairly explosive and opening blast ‘What I Cannot Be’ proves itself highly flammable. Like a bullet train, it speeds past and leaves the listener windswept and slightly dazed. Saying all it has to in two frenetic minutes, it’s the musical equivalent of a drive by shooting; it’s a bullet suddenly appearing between your eyebrows and hits as such. There’s no warning, just a smoking corpse laying in its wake.
It’s been change in the DARKO camp since the release of their last album with vocalist Dan Smith returning to his native Australia, and Tom West (of progressive thrashers Almeida) taking his place. Replacing a singer is no easy task, they’re often the most identifiable element of a band and fans often form a strong bond with them. But in Tom, DARKO have struck gold and he’s certainly made the spot his own, he’s brought an emotive element to cuts such as ‘Built On Broken Backs’ that brings to mind New York’s ‘Polar Bear Club’. They were such a great band who I thought would be lost in time, so it’s grand that DARKO are drawing upon them for inspiration. Yet there’s a multitude of influences impacting here from Mastadon to Propagandhi, all rolled up and served up as something refreshingly original.
It feels as if the band’s tenth anniversary has been taken as an opportunity for a kind of reset. While there’s been no radical overhaul in the band’s sound (and long term fans won’t be disappointed), the band do sound refreshed and recharged; the battery is flashing at 100% and they’re operating as such. A track like ‘Aggro’ does exactly what it says on the tin; it’s a street brawler looking for trouble and it swings with venom. However, the band aren’t all visceral rage and there are moments of calm to temper their attack (such as the coda on ‘AUX II’) which add contrast and shade to make for a more rounded listen.
This is an EP that’s bursting at the seams with good ideas, and in truth those ideas could have been fleshed out to make a full album. But as it stands Greyscale finds the band at a creative peak and it will be interesting to see where they go from here.
- Greyscale is released via Lockjaw Records on 17th May 2024.
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Track List:
- What I Cannot Be
- Built On Broken Backs
- Aggro
- AUX II
- Lowest Hanging Fruit
