The Darkness have always been great band in my book, some of course might not be able to get past Justin’s voice, others might find their fun levels disturbingly high but it’s hard to knock the songs. This one, if you’ve loved the last few is quite honestly hard to put down.
It’s a little hard to describe opener ‘Welcome Tae Glasgae’ with its driving drums, bagpipes, slights to Scottish food, big riffy groove and heavy ending’ but clocking in at under three minutes it just ‘feels’ like the right opener. The bouncy ‘It’s Love Jim’ a hard rocking classic with a great riff and a Star Trek reference and video game ending. You get the feeling that like the prophetically-titled ‘Easter is Cancelled’ (The Darkness were one of the last International bands we saw Downunder before Easter was indeed effectively cancelled) this one is going to be another winner with a great mix of hard rockers, melody and humorous touches…
The reason The Darkness are so great though really plays out in the next few tunes. Firstly title track ‘Motorheart’ – it’s fun, stutteringly Metallic and a little Prog in outset, and it roars out of the traps with aplomb and lands another winning punch before Progging out again at the tail. ‘The Power and The Glory of Love’ is that mid tempo unmistakably catchy hard rocker that will have everyone nodding their heads. And then comes ‘Jussy’s Girl’ a hard rocker that seems to take the grand concept of Rick Springfield’s Jessie’s Girl (yes attempting to be funny there) and give it a little twist. It works, as does pretty much everything here.
Add a grand Queen-infused laid back ‘Sticky Situations’ to the pot, stir and mix in a wonderfully melodic ‘Nobody Can See Me Cry’ with it’s galloping riff and gentler refrain; then scatter some power pop with a touch of ‘Eastbound’ and its innuendos and name-checking of pubs (I’m sure I’ve been to Lowestoft’s Triangle Tavern). It’s all such fun and works so well, and I can’t help thinking even better if you get all the quirky references.
Eight tracks in I’m more than happy but there’s still four more to come. There’s touches of 80’s alt rock in ‘Speed of the Nite Time’ and its gentler approach. ‘You Don’t Have to be Crazy About Me… But it Helps’ gets nice and funky, and ‘It’s a Love Thing (You Wouldn’t Understand)’ is classic Darkness, fun and innuendo, a light and breezy ditty about young love. We close with the acoustic strum of ‘So Long’ which comes across as Americana via Suffolk and makes you wonder if there’s a Country album in these Eastern dudes one day?
Remember when Rock used to be fun all those decades ago? Well here it still is.
8/10
