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Heavy band Darknet caught my ear near the end of 2019 through a drawn-out “Related Artists” search during a slow day at work. I was immediately hooked with the band’s nu-metal-tinged, industrial-hardcore sound. It’s hard for me to find bands with this niche, as only a few others come to mind, like VCTMS and Sleep Waker. A band willing to go to lengths to describe the thematic imagery of the lyrics as well as the instrumental composition is a band I can respect greatly; and Darknet has done just that on their Facebook page for Morally Flexible, their 2019 release.

“Morally Flexible” was the first track written for the album, and the topic of the track is “how connected the world is yet how lonely we have all become“. “Nos” draws hip-hop influences and the experimental breakdown is expanded upon: “We wanted to pull of a breakdown hitting without guitars for awhile and are glad we got to pull that off“. My personal favorite off the album, “D34DH34D”, centers around “being pressured to be like everybody else“, with the lyrics “Always hearing these voices spew choices, gnawing at my consciousness.”

The last track written for Morally Flexible was “Bleached”, with mentioned punk influences and a desire to combine old and new inspired by a Nike shoe, of all things. The interlude song, “Pale Blue”, has some spoken-word lyrics based on a peculiar daydream to segue into the next track, “Fear2fail”. The next update notes that the band lost all of their files at some point; thankfully, they were able to rebuild. “Re-lapse” hearkens back to Alice in Chains and emphasizes the need for moderation: “We like to have fun, just not when it starts to effect everything else in our lives negatively.”

The second of two interludes takes place in “Fake”, and embodies what Darknet is all about: “experimenting and mashing genres together“. “Split” was “written to get gnarly with” and expands upon traveling and finding new love in life: “Starting fresh, meeting new people and experiencing new cultures can really take you out of your head.”  “Wasted” hones in on drug dependency and its ill-effects and toxicity. Finally, the closing track, “Ghost”, was revived thanks to a misclick in its project phase, and focuses on the struggle of disabilities, and the people who help remedy the problems associated.

I was pleased to get more insight into Morally Flexible, which is a standout in the genre for me. This short-but-sweet record is massively underrated and I have even more appreciation for it now that I have the background behind each track, making the deep cuts have a backbone and be more prominent. I would highly suggest listening to each song while reading the band’s paragraphs regarding them. Darknet has massive potential, and the talent on display is more than enough to launch their career in no time.

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