Darko
Greyscale EP – Lockjaw Records
In the fast and frenetic world of hardcore punk a decade is a lifetime, but that’s the duration UK bruisers DARKO have been assaulting our eardrums. With a relentless work ethic and a take-no-prisoners ethos the band have beaten a path for others to follow, and with new vocalist Tom West at the helm DARKO have undergone a kind of reset. Like a rubber band stretched to the point of snapping and then released, opening shot ‘What I Cannot Be’arrives as such, and it’s the perfect mission statement. Full of vim and vigour, it’s akin to a brutal street brawl, it’s violent and leaves the listener battered and bruised and wondering what just hit them. Greyscale takes all the band’s influences (everyone from Polar Bear Club to Propagandhi) and beats them into something wholly original. It ensures this EP never becomes generic, it’s bursting at the seams with more ideas than most bands pack into an entire career, and that becomes patently obvious on epic closer ‘Lowest Hanging Fruit’. Clocking in at a cool five-and-a-half minutes, it’s almost progressive in structure and is the kind of move their peers would be afraid to make, meaning Greyscale points to a colourful future.
Review by Peter Dennis