The Astonishing Fury of Mankind

Album Review

This French band doesn't sound French, which is kind of a bummer, because France has been producing some pretty incredible metal records in recent years, from Gojira to Antaeus, Spektr, Monarch!, Blut Aus Nord, and Deathspell Omega. Each of those groups re-shapes a subgenre (technical thrash in Gojira's case, doom for Monarch!, and arty black metal in the case of Antaeus, Spektr, Blut Aus Nord, and Deathspell). Darkness Dynamite, from their silly name on down, aren't reinventing anything. They offer anthemic choruses ripped equally from Killswitch Engage and Disturbed, downtuned riffing straight from the metalcore fakebook, and other sections stolen from Scandinavian melodic death metal acts like Dark Tranquillity, Arch Enemy, et al. None of those are bad places to borrow ideas from, but the near-total lack of originality here is somewhat dispiriting. Only the album's last two tracks, "The Everlasting Grace of Mind" and the title track, show some real inspiration: the first is an instrumental that calls to mind Pink Floyd's driftier, early-'70s moments, creating a mood that sustains into the first minute or so of the latter track, before the big riffs and double-bass drum fills come roaring in again. Given how bad French rock music has been for decades, it's probably no surprise that the recent bursts of quality have proven to be aberrant, with Darkness Dynamite being a regression to the mean.