Thank your Billy Corgans, your RADIOHEADs your NINE INCH NAILS, and your OPETHs for making mainstream rock so staid and tight, the discs should be opened with can openers. This is the reason why so many people don’t get THE DARKNESS and their attempts to break the spell the FM radio populus fell under fifteen years ago. Folks were looking for a change and had gotten sick of hearing crap like “Unskinny Bop” and that limp dick version of BAD COMPANY every thirty seconds. But in ridding ourselves of it, we forgot that this was all supposed to be fun, wasn't it? Well, as the title declares, “One Way Ticket to Hell…and Back” packs in more comedic and thunderous debauchery than a tv-dropping contest from a 20th floor hotel room window.

While it would have been easy for Hawkins and crew to release another album of straight-up, puffy rockers like the last album, instead they’ve done a marvelous job pushing the envelope. Fans of the “Permission to Land” album get the perils-of-cocaine commentary in the title track (best line: “Several massive choking lines of glorious gack, I bought a one way ticket to hell and back”), the hilariously anti-macho “Knockers”, and the LEPPARD-ish “Dinner Lady Arms”. But there’s so much more. Roy Thomas Baker’s supernatural production adds breathtaking majesty to the MOTT THE HOOPLE-style breakup ode, “Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time” and the startling replication of QUEEN circa 1975 in “Blind Man”. I’m not sure how to describe the bizarre Gaelic-sort of vocal wails in “Hazel Eyes”, except to say that a “Vagabonds...” kind of spoken word piece from Phil Lynott would go perfectly over the crazy swashbuckling guitar bits.

Overall, the record rocks hard, and has the audacity to exceed “Permission to Land” in flamboyance and ingenuity. My advice would be for you to stop comparing this band to a spoof Bud Light commercial or anything from the hair metal era. You know perfectly well none of those bands ever came up with a chorus like, “Is it just me, or am I all on my own again?”. Embrace the fun!

- Marchman

OFFICIAL SITE: myspace.com/thedarkness

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