As a wise man once said, those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And that certainly seems the case, with global recession, guerrilla wars, and leggings all making unwelcome comebacks. Perhaps ‘Dark Days’ is an appropriate title for these troubled times. It’s also a cruelly ironic one, since it was the name of a Coal Chamber album; their swan song, although ‘death knell’ is probably a more apposite one. And sadly, it looks like history is repeating with this one.

Sounding strangely out of time, both rhythmically and stylistically, ‘Dark Days’ is at times a frustrating record, because there’s clearly a lot of enthusiasm here. It’s just it’s not particularly exciting; the guitar work is somewhat uninspiring, with the leads needing a little more precision to lock the rhythm into place. And speaking of which, the drumming definitely needs a lots more dynamic shifts to really power the riffs along: with nary a double kick flurry to be seen, it all seems to fall rather flat. Where the opening flurry of opener ‘Eradicate The Cause’ is impressive, it’s sadly not sustained throughout the rest of the songs, with generic riff after generic riff limping out of the speakers. The production most of all needs a boost; it seems to have muzzled the strings somewhat, so the riffs lose what bite they once possessed. ‘Touch Of Chaos’ is perhaps the most systemic example of their short-comings: an interesting opening riff loses its way in Mid-Paced Land, and the rest of the song ends up playing catch up to expectations.

However, it’s not without its merits. ‘Spitritus Machineus’ shows they do have they knack for writing deliciously harmonising riffs, with the odd little bridge thrown in to keep the listener on their toes rather than just slumped. Also worth mentioning is the vocal arrangement, which despite the occasional clunky lyric, uses alternating growls and clean vocals to more satisfying effect. Also, ‘Brotherhood Of Wolves’ confounds initial prejudices of it being a ‘Black Album’ Metallica rip, by actually being quite good in its quieter moments. While the faster parts in the main don’t satisfy, the final two minutes show a deft ‘call and response’ riff, and a very welcome burst of bass drumming, with a finale that gives great rousing cheer.

It’s a shame that this is such a patchy effort, because this band clearly have the potential to go along with their keenness. There is hope, though: Dev Fafara, dusting himself off after the debacle of Coal Chamber, went on to form DevilDriver, who need no further explanation. Let’s hope Lycan can prove to take a ray of light from ‘Dark Days’, rather than leave it as a day to forget.

http://www.myspace.com/lycanuk
http:/www.lycanonline.co.uk

Steve Jones

MTUK HOME