★★★★★
"One by one the Kingdoms fall..." goes the spoken-word monologue that opens the fourth Darkness album. In comes the riff, a quaking, thrusting monster over which Justin Hawkins screams "AHHHHHH!" and gabbles about the Viking invasion of East Anglia in AD 865 ("Reducing the feeble citadels/To ashes and blood stain"). Then, of course, is a preposterous guitar solo. As openers go, you can't really argue with 'Barbarian'...
- www.nme.com
2015-06-10
★★★★★
In the grand scheme of things, it's strange that the whole story even happened on the scale that it did. At the time of their breakthrough in 2003, popular guitar music was firmly planted in another part of the spectrum. We were on the eve of emo's Noughties revival, in which vulnerability and introspection were all the rage, while the charts had the mirthless fuckery of Keane to look forward to. It wasn't particularly fertile soil for big-haired, big-riffed cock rock...
- www.drownedinsound.com
2015-05-29
★★★★★
Old-fashioned rock band celebrating the form by acknowledging and therefore subverting its more ridiculous aspects, or tired joke band taking the piss out of rock? On the evidence of lead track Barbarian - and, indeed, the whole album - it is, as always, hard to say where The Darkness' true intentions lie...
- recordcollectormag.com
2015-05-21
★★★★★
Post-Strokes, Post-Libertines, the "New Rock Revolution" was beginning to creep its way through the UK. From the worthy Strokes, White Stripes, Libertines, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs to the wholly unworthy Vines and Datsuns, the UK was gripped by prim and proper white folk down-strumming the hell out of their guitars and blurring the line between barking and singing...
- www.sputnikmusic.com
2014-09-11
★★★★★
With their knack for crafting memorable glam rock tunes and lead singer Justin Hawkins' soaring Freddie Mercury-like falsetto the Darkness had a very bright-looking future when their debut album Permission to Land and its massive hit single "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" stormed onto the charts in 2003. Hawkins however couldn't handle the trappings of rapid stardom and succumbed to a drug-fueled breakdown that took the band out of commission for the better part of a decade...
- www.antimusic.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
The Darkness have a habit of taking everyone by surprise. In the early part of the last decade they garnered a massive following thanks to their astonishing live performances, though the music industry's A&Rs (remember them?) wouldn't touch them with a bargepole. Once finally signed, their debut album Permission To Land went quadruple platinum in the UK, and was an emphatic riposte to the cynics...
- thequietus.com
2012-09-04
★★★★★
When 'I Believe In A Thing Called Love' dropped in 2003, The Darkness were a breath of fresh air and their debut Permission To Land packed fun into every riff with its unashamedly OTT glam rock stance. The follow-up, One Way Ticket To Hell...And Back, showed early signs that the formula was already going stale and the swift end of the band seemed to confirm that The Darkness were, if not one trick ponies, then they were certainly a band that had run their course...
- music.thedigitalfix.com
2012-08-30
★★★★★
Sound: Who remembers The Darkness? Nine (yes, nine) years ago their multi-platinum debut album "Permission To Land" stormed the charts and reintroduced air guitar, falsetto and tight jumpsuits to the mainstream. Free of pretence and full of tunes, it was a big hit for what was a rather flaccid period in pop music...
- www.ultimate-guitar.com
2012-08-30
★★★★★
Oh boy. How exactly do you begin a review with an album that has sleeve art like Hot Cakes? Admittedly, rock is no stranger to lurid, oversexed photography; if you look at any number of releases in between the Cars' Candy-O and the Darkness' debut LP Permission to Land, you're bound to find any number of pictures depicting women in poses so over-the-top you know that only a testosterone-raged male rock musician could have come up with it...
- www.popmatters.com
2012-08-30
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