New Darkest Hour Song “Wasteland” Rips All Sorts of Faces

When you press play on the new Darkest Hour song “Wasteland” you’re gonna be all like, “Holy shit, this rips!” Once you recover from the immediate shock of face-fuckage from said ripping, you’re gonna be all like, “Whoa, this is different for Darkest Hour!” And you’d be correct on multiple levels. First, on the surface:

• This is the first time I can recall Darkest Hour using 7-string guitars (could be wrong about this, though), certainly in this prominent a fashion
• More clean singing (although they’ve certainly been leaning more and more in this direction over the albums/years), but not in a cheesy way
• Big, punchy, modern production
• complete lack of Sweden worship

At least in part, those differences are due to myriad behind-the-scenes shake-ups:

• this is their first recording with new bassist Aaron Deal (ex-Salome) and new drummer Travis Orbin (ex-Periphery, ex-Sky Eats Airplane)
• this is their first album for Sumerian Records
• they worked with a younger, less established producer this time around in Taylor Larsen (Periphery)

Here’s to hoping the rest of the new album — which we now know is self titled, not called Fuck Waiting Around to Die as previously suspected — sounds like this, because “Wasteland” is really good. Super catchy, super heavy, and, oh my, dat guitar solo!

What’s the whole “Fuck Waiting Around to Die” thing got to do with it though? The album comes out August 5th; pre-order here.