The departure of bassist Frankie Poullain, a long gestation period, lukewarm receptions to the new material at Reading and Leeds ... many feared The Darkness were one hit album wonders.听 However, they're proved their heads haven't disappeared up their own mid-table orifii (as Alan Partridge might say).听听 The new album is shot through with their trade-mark schoolboy humour with the songs rooted in the classic rock sound of AC/DC, early Queen and, to a lesser extent, Thin Lizzy.
 | | One Way Ticket To Hell ... And Back |
Given that he produced Bohemian Rhapsody, it's no surprise that Roy Thomas Baker throws in everything but the kitchen sink.听 The opener One Way Ticket has pan pipes, snorting, sitars - and that's just the intro of the increasingly catchy hit single. The rest of the album simply puts a smile on your face and has you playing "spot the musical reference".听听 Knockers seems to take its lyrical theme from AC/DC's Whole Lotta Rosie,听 Is It Just Me? riffs away like the lovechild of Angus & Co.'s Giving The Dog A Bone (or听 is it Warriors Of Genghis Khan by Bad News?) and is that a Rolf Harris stylophone solo on Girlfriend?
 | | Roadsign spotted in Hell - or was it Lowestoft? |
Pollain is credited on four songs on what is quite a short album which clocks it at only just over half an hour.听 Never mind the quantity, feel the width as the band would probably say.听听 More top-quality puerile poetry can be found in English Country Garden which is presumably a reference to what Dan Hawkins gets up to in the vegetable patch of his Norfolk rockstar farmhouse.听 Don't buy a used marrow from these men. All that's left for the band is to take control of the USA, but one wonders what they make of the saucy seaside postcard humour (clearly still alive and well in Lowestoft) and references to the "flatlands of East Anglia" (gee, is that in Wales?), "dinner lady arms" and "village fetes". The only weak points are the more serious, slower tracks Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time and Blind Man which don't ever really take-off.听 Someone at the record company, or possibly Ma Hawkins, has clearly cleaned out their mouths with a bar of soap as well.听 There's not a "*拢nt" or even a "f$%@" this time round.
 | | Justin says don't forget to Have Your Say ... |
The only question that remains is whether Justin can follow-up the self-deprecation of Bald and eventually shave off his hair in the manner of follically-challenged new bassist Richie Edwards.听听 If he attempts the full Bobby Charlton sweep-over then we'll know The Darkness have truly lost it.听 And is that Black Shuck coming out of the locomotive chimney on the album cover? | 
