- Release Info -------------------------------------------------------------- -
Artist: Tragedy
Album: Darker Days Ahead
Label: Tragedy Records
Playtime: 36:35 min
Genre: Hardcore
URL:
Rip date: 2012-07-12
Street date: 2012-05-08
Size: 72.19 MB
Type: Normal
Quality: 262 kbps / 4410Hz / Joint Stereo
- Release Notes ------------------------------------------------------------- -
"For a band that cloaks itself in mystery, Tragedy's fourth LP, Darker Days
Ahead, is surprisingly straight forward. Still, while the LP doesn't mess too
much with Tragedy's unique, metallic, crust punk, it does exhibit why the band
has managed to stand heads above most of their ilk.
Darker Days Ahead is Tragedy's first LP in six years, and since their previous
release, they've maintained an extremely low profile, without a website,
Facebook, MySpace or Angelfire site, and have done just a few, barely
announced tours. It would seem the band likes its work to speak for itself.
Such a stratagem is understandable. While a great deal of crust punk can be
rote with clichΘ refrains and have bludgeoningly direct lyrics, Darker Days
Ahead features the band painting portraits that can be applied to any manner
of tangible or intangible concepts. Of course, being crust punk, the band
tells tales of apocalyptic wastelands, economies falling and basically general
misery. But, wisely, instead of pinpointing the lyrics to a particular time
and place, the words are vague enough to be place din nearly any time period,
from the middle ages through 2055 (the year the robots won), but nuanced
enough to paint vivid imagery, even if such apocalyptic imagery may be
interpreted wildly differently by listeners. [Everybody knows the robot
holocaust is in 2033 - editor]
Musically, the band descends even deeper into the murk since Nerve Damage.
Guitars are downtuned. Vocalist Todd Burdette growls more like an angry beast
than a human, leaving his lyrics indecipherable, but at the same time,
intelligible in emotion. Noticeably, while earlier Tragedy works would
sometimes rev up the energy, hurling forward at a hardcore attack, for the
most part Darker Days Ahead is so low, so heavy, and so sludgy, that at times
it feels almost more like early death metal than crust punk. Of course, the
band likely doesn't worry about if the are "punk" or not, but it seems that
they have shrouded themselves in such a massive sound, they are heavy metal
without even intending it.
While the band has amplified their heaviest aspect, there is little here that
is surprising. While the songs are mostly low and heavy, they could likely
have been inserted into other Tragedy releases without raising an eyebrow.
Instead of pushing forward, the band has focused on their heaviest parts and
collected them all together. It's not necessarily new, but it works well, and
gives the feeling of an impending atmosphere getting heavier and heavier and
heavier and darker and darker and darker."
- Track List ---------------------------------------------------------------- -
01. No Cemeteries Here ( 5:42)
02. Close at Hand ( 3:35)
03. The Grim Infinite ( 5:41)
04. The Feeding Hour ( 3:01)
05. Wail of Sirens ( 4:27)
06. Darker Days Ahead ( 3:40)
07. Black Against Night ( 2:03)
08. Power Fades ( 3:52)
09. To Earth Like Dust ( 4:34)
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