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Having recently discovered Parkway Drive’s breakout album, Horizons, I was interested to see how their newest release would compare. Although the band’s sound has changed significantly from 2007, this album still managed to deliver an engaging experience for most of the 46-minute runtime.

Darker Still was released this past Friday, on the 9th of September, and is the eighth full-length album from the Australian Metalcore band. Darker Still is eleven tracks in total and was published by Epitaph Records.

In contrast to the earlier projects from the band, Darker Still feels like a modern interpretation of the classic heavy metal songs from the 1980s. The album features lots of strong power chords and heavy riffs, combined with catchy vocals and choruses. Unfortunately, I found the overall execution here lacking at times.

The album starts off well enough with “Ground Zero.” The guitar work from Jeff Ling and Luke Kilpatrick is great with a soring riff and a heavy rhythm track. The follow-up track, however, “Like Napalm” feels homogenous, with a similar structure, riff, and everything. There is a decent solo midway through “Like Napalm” that injects some life back into it, but overall the song feels like an extension of the opening track.

Fortunately, the next song “Glitch” does have a distinct style. The slower tempo and choppy vocals from Winston McCall culminate into a ferocious breakdown, combined with another solid guitar solo that ensures this track stands out from the previous two. Following that is another solid track, “The Greatest Fear” which amps up the epic tone while also delivering a great story through the lyrics. I especially enjoyed the inclusion of the choir background vocals that ties everything together beautifully.

The title track of Darker Still also does not disappoint. McCall delivers a powerful vocal ballad combined with more impressive guitar work from Jeff that reminded me of Metallica’s “Fade to Black.”

This middle third of the album is where I would say the writing goes downhill. “Imperial Heretic” feels as if it is more of the same as seen everywhere else on the album from the lyrics to the instrumentals, while the follow-up song “If a God Can Bleed” is awkward to say the least. I’m not really sure what the band is going for here, as the song is all over the place tonally. It’s almost reminiscent of a folk song but has a truly awful stock drum beat and ridiculously goofy lyrics.

The mood then shifts dramatically into the crushing noise of “Soul Bleach,” which tries to capture the brutal attitude of the band’s early metalcore days with growling vocals and chilling screams. It, however, fails miserably in the writing department.  Lines such as: “I’m not Superman, I’ve got issues. first is trust and the second is you,” feel like something I would have written when I was twelve.

Early heavy metal bands such as Iron Maiden, Megadeth, and even Metallica often leaned into the public perception of metal as intense, aggressive, and violent with their branding or song titles. It’s clear Parkway Drive is trying to capture a similar tone with these last few songs. Though, whereas early bands often used this element as a way to breathe levity into the extreme nature of the genre, Parkway Drive’s attempt oftentimes comes across as forced and just plain corny.

Though the final two songs, “Land of the Lost” and ‘From the Heart of Darkness,” do a decent job of saving the lowest parts of the album, I felt it was already too late to save my sour perception of this project. Parkway Drive attempts to channel the past with this album but loses some of the band’s sound along the way. Ultimately, this album feels like a battle to get through at times, yet is never irritating to the point that you want to turn it off.

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Parkway Drive - Darker Still

$23.99

5.5

Score

5.5/10

Pros

• Decent Instrumentals
• Great ballad track

Cons

• Corny writing
• If a God Can Bleed
• Homogenous middle songs