16. Dark Angel Darkness Descends 1986 (Combat)
Thrash Metal
As darkness descends...... the dead will rise again.
The Lowdown
With numerous west coast thrash bands from this period springing up in San Francisco, it was no surprise that sister city Los Angeles would have its own thrash metal bands as well and one such band the “LA Caffeine Machine” better known as Dark Angel were one of those bands. Their album
Darkness Descends is often considered one of the landmark thrash albums from this period, so much so that Revolver magazine placed it in their “14 Thrash Albums You Need to Own” list and 14 seems like a strange number to me for a list! For my ears the album is suitably geared up for the dedicated thrash enthusiast, as its song structures are often extended with long instrumental sections (kind of like Slayer trying to stretch out songs) that might just end up testing the mettle of your average metal fan. I think it’s this uncompromising style that earned the band the aptly named “LA Caffeine Machine” moniker that was mentioned earlier and
Darkness Descends would be the band’s second album after their debut
We Have Arrived had been released the previous year.
We Have Arrived was certainly one of those primitive thrash metal albums that’s hardly a listening necessity, even though it does have its fans, so it might be a worthy listen for some out there. The album cover ties in nicely with the gharish and some would call tacky album covers from this period, but as I’ve always really liked these type of Halloween album covers I think it’s a pretty good one and it's almost 3D in style where it really captures the mood of those mid-1980s horror flicks. The album was produced by engineer/producer Randy Burns who was a constant mainstay in extreme metal at this time and had already worked with bands like Megadeth and Sucidal Tendencies, and would later go onto to work with Death. From the word go the production values are far superior than the debut where the riffs are far tighter and more potent, and this is in evidence from the 5 minute onslaught of the title track “Darkness Descends” which like Anthrax features comic book characters. In this case it’s the Dark Judges from Judge Dredd and even features the line ‘this city is guilty, the crime is life, the sentence is death’ which for any Judge Dredd fan is familiar rhetoric. The lack of variation on the album is certainly evident by track three the neatly named “Hunger of the Undead” where it now seems completely apparent that not much is going to change throughout the rest of the album, despite some moody song intros. The strongest tracks come in the shape of “Merciless Death” where Don Doty sounds a bit like Dave Mustaine at times and the equally strong “Death is Certain”. The albums falls down though on its longest track "Black Prophecies" where at over 8 minutes the band had certainly pushed their envelope too far. The end of the album though is saved by "Perish in Flames" which gets back to certifiable thrash territory, even if the track sounds like a another Slayer entry with Don Doty throwing in some James Hetfield type vocals. This would also be the band’s final album with original vocalist Don Doty (yep that’s not Don Dokken btw) where he would soon be replaced by Rob Rinehart. Most of the tracks on the album would be written by guitarist Jim Durkin and fellow guitarist and driving force Eric Meyer would be the band’s mainstay over the years. Star turn on the album is probably put in by drummer Gene Hoglan, who would go onto become known as the best known musician from the band, as his creative drumming over the years would see him feature on multiple extreme metal releases. Dark Angel like so many other thrash bands of their ilk, never actually managed to really grow beyond their local fanbase and largely became known as just another one of those ‘scene bands’ that continued to put out albums over the years, in general though these albums never reached the heights of this their second album
Darkness Descends. In quick summary the album is a solid if not great listen imo, largely because most of its songs sound like other artists rather than the band trying to squeeze out their own unique sound, but it's still worth checking out.
Don Doty- Vocals
Eric Meyer- Guitar
Jim Durkin- Guiitar
Rob Yahn- Bass
Gene Hoglan- Drums
Production- Randy Burns