The Darkness
Permission To Land

THE REVIEW

The Darkness was born in 2002 thanks to an idea by the Hawkins brothers to resurrect the defunct group that was attempting the progressive route, with a band that would emulate the melodies of Queen and the riffs of Led Zeppelin. "Permission to Land" was released in 2003, garnering incredible success with both the public and critics (the group literally raided the 2004 edition of the Brit Awards) which took them from playing in very small English clubs to much more important and visible locations, like the Astoria.

Without beating around the bush too much, it must be said immediately that this album is simply banal and low-level; it owes its success more to the gaudy costumes of the folkloric leader and the band's entertaining live performances than to the real musical substance of the group.
The album contains, if one dares to be partial, at most two good songs: "love is only a feeling" and "growing on me".
The rest is absolutely forgettable for various reasons: there are many bands that borrow quite explicitly from Led Zeppelin and Queen, but The Darkness seems to lack even the decency to "camouflage" their mishmash of hackneyed and recycled sounds, of pilfered riffs with something that is enjoyable and not only comical. Certainly, it's an album that entertains and is surely pleasant to listen to, perhaps in moments of incredible boredom and depression: but one must have an excessive taste for self-harm to do it!
The fact is that it's quite astonishing to see a group of this kind, which could be associated for originality and "fineness" of costumes to our country cousins (ok, ok I'm exaggerating), at the top of all the charts and praised by a good part of the critics. Personally, I am of the opinion that it is a band, like many others, concocted by some clever manager and marketed by MTV and the like as the new icon of rock.
One could, if desired, save Hawkins' voice, but, in the long run, even it tires with the monotonous repetition of shrieks and high notes.

If it were possible to give a score lower than 0, I would do so without hesitation but, unfortunately, I am forced to a "diplomatic" score to describe how little music there is in this album.