DVD Review: Darkest Hour Tell a Tale of 20 Years With Party Scars and Prison Bars: Two and a Half
There are a few things in this world that are refreshing beyond belief: a negative pregnancy test in your teen years, cracking open your first beer of the weekend, and when musicians you love aren’t the burning embodiments of douche. Such is the case with Darkest Hour and their newest DVD Party Scars and Prison Bars: Two and a Half.
Party Scars is a DVD that chronicles Darkest Hour’s 20th Anniversary Tour in 2015 and is a bonus perk given to anyone who donates money to the Indiegogo campaign the band is using to fund their ninth full-length album. The DVD clocks in at 36 minutes (we’re told there will be more added before release) and starts off with a good deal of footage showing the band partying, having fun and being themselves. After that, it’s mostly footage of the band playing live, and at the end, it’s a bit more of Darkest Hour partying and being themselves again.
Among the coolest parts of the film are when former Darkest Hour guitarists Kris Norris, Fred Ziomek and Mike Garrity come on stage for a song each. Another is near the end during “The Sadist Nation” when a dude in a wheelchair crowd surfs onto the stage and starts rocking out with the band; I didn’t think body banging in a wheelchair was possible, but sometimes I’m happy to be proven wrong (other times I go into a berserker rage and smash things. It’s a kind of a toss up.).
So even with all the cool nostalgia and disability-friendly moshing, Party Scars didn’t particularly impress with the camera angles used to film the band playing. That isn’t to say they were bad by any means, but there just wasn’t anything that really blew me away; it feels like you end up spending more time looking at Darkest Hour’s asses than anything. But hey, at the end of the day most of the people watching this already know how kick-ass Darkest Hour are, so it’s hard to take away too much just for unimaginative camera angles and butts. The rest of Party Scars is great, and if it’s any indication of the new album, we won’t be disappointed.
Party Scars and Prison Bars: Two and a Half is a perk from Darkest Hour’s Indiegogo campaign to fund their ninth album, which you can contribute to here. There is no release date as of yet; however, the donation page gives an estimated date of September 2016.
