Darkest Hour - Hidden Hands of a Sadist Nation

I thought Victory Records was a lost cause, a label now buried in the shrapnel of the emo explosion. I feared they had abandoned the extremes of metal and hardcore for a Drive Thru Records-type of pop-punk and a Vagrant Records-sense of sentimental emo. But my worries were soon pummeled into nothingness by the machine gun quickness of Darkest Hour’s kick drum, the manic, guttural screams from their frontman and the ferocity released from their six strings. Darkest Hour are many things metal should be – extreme, technical, ferocious, dark – and everything it’s currently not. The ten brutal musical lashings that make up Hidden Hands of a Sadist Nation are charged with melodic death metal and dizzying hardcore song structures to form an album that definitely holds comparisons to other bands – namely Dillinger Escape Plan, Drowningman and Zao – but is a breath of fresh air to both Victory Records’ discography and the world of metal. Hidden Hands of a Sadist Nation is much too brutal to have in regular rotation – especially when no song on this disc is under four minutes – but Darkest Hour have carved an album that is metal – black, power and heavy – in every essence of the word. And for now – even though it’s not transgressing genres and breaking barriers – that’s more than enough. [www.darkesthour.com]