Darkest Hour - 'Savor the Kill'

Earlier today, Darkest Hour released a new song via Noisecreep titled "Savor the Kill." And if you were like me, you saw the band's Tweet from this morning and waited oh so patiently for 1PM EST to arrive.


My first impression was that this song is terrible and the worst thing Darkest Hour have ever recorded. They seem to have completely abandoned the "core" suffix of the "metalcore" label that they've been stuck with. And is this the closest thing to singing that we've heard from John Henry since "A Paradox with Flies" off their 2007 album Deliver Us? Yikes, you can't SING in heavy metal band! Or so I'm told. Perhaps this is the influence from their major label E1 Music?

Experience tells me to give this song a chance for many reasons. First, I've hated every song Darkest Hour promotionally released prior to the release of an album. Both "Demon(s)" and "No God" bored me to tears, but their respective albums were actually pretty good as a whole. So perhaps "Savor the Kill" is only their "catchy and accessible song" to unsuspectingly lure in a new audience? I mean, isn't that part of the mindset one must adopt in selecting a promotional song? Also, other heavy releases by E1 have been fairly well received. Two E1 releases, Hatebreed's self-titled album and High on Fire's Snakes for the Divine, were both pretty good despite having just switched to a major label. Neither of them quite reached the "sell out" status often associated with signing to one of the majors. Remember when Atreyu was considered one of the biggest names in "metalcore"? And then they released the hard rock album Lead Sails Paper Anchor on Hollywood Records...

And what's this about a song being titled "Savor the Kill"? The theme for the album seems like it should be about love based on the skeletons embracing each other on the cover and the title, The Human Romance. Perhaps it's going to be a darker side of love? The bitterness associated with falling out of love? Some of the other titles appear pretty grim as well: "The World Engulfed in Flames," "Love As a Weapon," "Your Everyday Disaster" and "Purgatory." So while Darkest Hour might be tuning the hardcore down and the heavy metal up, perhaps the passionate lyrics are sharper than ever. Maybe it'll make a similar progression from Master of Puppets to And Justice for All? Only time tell. The album drops on February 22.

For comparison, here's Darkest Hour's music video for "The Sadist Nation" off their 2003 album The Hidden Hands of a Sadist Nation. It's noticeably more aggressive and hardcore, not to mention more politically charged lyrically.