The Human Romance is Darkest Hour's 7th - let me say that again: SEVENTH - studio album, and the followup to their critically acclaimed 2009 album The Eternal Return. This album is, without a doubt, their absolute best work to date. This band has a chemistry that many groups never find, and they work together masterfully.
"Terra Nocturnus" opens the album with haunting guitars that are heavily reverbed to produce an atmospheric effect that will send chills up your spine before it fades into "The World Engulfed In Flames". You can really hear the melodeath influences on the intro to this song before the thrash and metalcore sides of things take over on the verse. I love John Henry's vocals; his growls are uniquely rough and his cleans have a melodic grit to them that fits the music perfectly. And his evolution as a vocalist has astounded me - he has a depth to his voice that he has continued to develop over the years. "Savor The Kill" follows suit with a wicked melodeath feel to it. The dual guitar work of Mike Carrigan and founding member Mike Schleibaum is so skilled and catchy. Paul Burnette's bass fills in the low end nicely, and Ryan Parrish absolutely owns the drum kit. "Man & Swine" switches gears and kicks you in the teeth as it emphasizes the metalcore/hardcore side of things with Parrish, Carrigan, and Schleibaum setting a blistering pace. Darkest Hour slows things down a little with "Love Is A Weapon". I can only describe it as a ballad, but more brutal. John really showcases what he can do both on the growls and his cleans, and it works so well. "Your Everyday Disaster" kicks things back into high gear, bringing on the thrashy speed and metalcore riffs.
"Violent By Nature" starts the second half of the album off with a true thrash track that doesn't hold anything back. They slip seamlessly back into metalcore for the verses of "Purgatory" and mesh the melodeath sound in for the chorus. Moving on to full melodic death metal mode, DH proves that they know how to transition perfectly on "Severed Into Separates". Track ten, "Wound", is yet another pummeling combo of the three aforementioned genres performed perfectly. "Terra Solaris" opens with a haunting piano piece before the melodeath guitar and drum onslaught picks back up. This builds up until about halfway through the song (approximately 4 minutes) where it switches to an acoustic guitar duet. Strings are added to the guitars as it progresses to around the 6 minute mark as the drums and electric guitars tear back in. The last two and a half minutes are riddled with guitar solos that slowly fade to a clean electric guitar ending. After this eight and a half minute long epic instrumental track that displays a true mastery over their instruments, Darkest Hour lets John back on the scene in "Beyond The Life You Know", which closes out the standard edition of the album. The deluxe includes one more track, "Hierarchy Of Heathens", and it is a must have. This song is most definitely worth the upgrade to the deluxe edition.
Darkest Hour are veterans on the metal scene. Two of the founding members are still in the band, two more have been playing with them for at least ten years, and the newest addition to the band joined in 2008. They succeed in crafting an album that is completely coherent and functions just as well at having 12 amazing individual tracks (because let's face it, intro tracks don't really count) or one complete album. The Human Romance is definitely one of the best releases this year, and shows just how far Darkest Hour has come.
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