This time around, I’m going to pull a few extra duties and go over four new albums instead of one. 2010 looks to be a good year for music in general, but until the big names start dishing out hits, there’s plenty to tide people over. Take, for example, this set of darkness-tinged albums.



The first album on the list is Alesana’s “The Emptiness,” released on January 26th. The “emptiness” in this album’s tale of despair is easily expressed in heartbreak, grief, and loss. Every track relates to the story in some fashion. Now, I’m not well-versed in screamo, but this doesn’t sound half bad. Both the album’s pros and cons lay in its consistency; while all the songs are at least decent, very few stand out due to their similarity. “Curse of the Virgin Canvas,” the lead track, strikes a good balance between regular vocals and screaming that tends to waver on the rest of the record and plays like any good emo song should. “A Lunatic’s Lament” follows suit in being just different enough to be noticeable, but it’s otherwise nothing special. If you’re a screamo fan, this album fits in well with your collection. If not, just skip over it; the decency of the tunes is overwritten by their tendency to blend into each other. You could listen to the album the whole way through and not notice that you were listening at all, provided you don’t listen on a blasting stereo.




The second album, “Love is Gone,” belongs to goth rock newcomers Dommin (February 1st). This band, almost a decade in the making, has strong potential to lead their genre in the future. Their first album certainly shows plenty of promise. The album’s lead track, “My Heart, Your Hands,” sets a good tone with hard guitar lines and bells chiming while the vocals blaze in anger. “Love is Gone,” the title track, is a similar spitfire-style song with plenty of edge and bite to it, and easily distinguished from the tracks before it. “Tonight” is the closest this album comes to something resembling a ballad and walks the line of beautiful and haunting. “Dark Holiday” changes gears entirely, taking up a ragtime-style melody with a hard rock chorus injected every now and then. “Honestly” carries on the dark overtones of the record with excellence and might even find its way onto some dance mixes. The special edition of this album also comes with an outstanding cover of “(I Just) Died In Your Arms” by the Cutting Crew, and it seems as though Dommin themselves wrote it for how well it is covered. While the music has acquired a rightful label of goth rock, I would recommend this album to absolutely anyone. It’s just that good, and it packs a little something for everybody.



The third album in my review queue also fits the genre of goth rock, but this time it carries experience. H.I.M. delivers another dose of well-versed darkness with “Screamworks: Love in Theory and Practice” (February 5th). “Heartkiller,” the album’s first single, defines most of the album itself: Dark Light (2005) with a very light dance-style overtone. “In Venere Veritas” provides an excellent introduction to the record, mixing soft with loud, croon with scream, and English with Latin. “Scared to Death” is truly reminiscent of Dark Light; it could have easily fit in with the rest of that record as well as this one. “Love, the Hardest Way” distinguishes itself in its own fashion which I can’t find any accurate terms to describe, which is something in itself. Don’t worry, that’s a positive thing. “In the Arms of Rain” is easily a standout track, balancing itself between soft tones, shredding guitars, and arching vocals. In short, it’s a little of everything H.I.M. excels at. The bonus track version comes with three live tracks, but they’re nothing special. Overall, if you’ve heard any H.I.M. before at all, you can pretty much tell how this album plays out. That’s not to say it isn’t good though.



The fourth and final album in this review belongs to Taking Dawn. "Time to Burn" claims to meld metal and 80's rock together, but my friend put it more accurately: "It's like somebody tried to make Nickelback metal." The lead and title track, "Time to Burn," takes a modern metal approach to attacking faith, and is one of the best tracks on the album. The trouble is that only one other track, a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain," can claim the same. For the better part of this album, it's difficult to tell where one song stops and another starts. I actually lost focus while trying to listen to this. It's not bad music, but it just doesn't grab your attention for very long. I don't think this band is as hot as they think they are.

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All four of these albums have something to show off; it's just that some have more than others. From best to worst, I'd rate them as follows:

Love is Gone - 8/10 - Recommended to everyone
Screamworks - 7/10 - Recommended to goth rock/metal fans
The Emptiness - 7/10 - Recommended to screamo fans
Time to Burn - 6/10 - Recommended to metal fans who have everything else

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