Summer 2015 sees the return of multi-award winning band THE DARKNESS, with their fourth album Last of Our Kind – due out June 1st through partnership with Kobalt Label Services. The album produced by guitarist Dan Hawkins, boasts new track, “Barbarian” (http://smarturl.it/barbarianvid), currently manfully straddling the information super highway and is a palate cleanser for Last of Our Kind. Penned in Ireland, where the band play a small but perfectly formed tour in March, the record is bursting with the very finest rock-based music available to mankind, as one might expect.
Last of Our Kind is the first album to feature new drummer Emily Dolan Davies. She replaces original drummer Ed Graham who departed under mysterious circumstances. Having been drumming since 1999, Emily has played with everybody from the likes of Bono, Bryan Ferry and Tricky. Now she has shown herself to be equal to the ultimate music challenge.
Emily’s ability is face-shatteringly evident in “Barbarian.” Frontman Justin Hawkins describes the song as having “not one but two dramatic monologues, a guitar solo that has been declared ‘irresponsible,’ a riff that weakens lady-knees and a chorus that makes grown men shit directly into their pants. The lyrics describe the Viking invasion of East Anglia which culminated in the decapitation of Edmund the Martyr. So yeah, classic Darkness.”
Last of Our Kind is the meaty and impassioned follow-up to 2012’s Hot Cakes, which saw the band reunited having enjoyed a well-publicized and well-deserved hiatus. As distinguished guests of Def Leppard, The Darkness destroyed Download Festival in 2011, then waved goodbye to their loved ones and toured planet Earth for over 18 months. They rounded off 2013 with a celebratory tour marking the 10th Anniversary of their legendary Number One debut album, Permission to Land, which featured the classics “I Believe In a Thing Called Love” and “Get Your Hands Off My Woman.” It was the fastest-selling debut album by a British band in America since The Spice Girls.
Last of Our Kind will be released on limited edition color vinyl, CD and download. The Darkness will be announcing more touring plans for later this year very, very soon.
Track listing: Barbarian * Open Fire * Last of Our Kind * Roaring Waters * Wheels of the Machine *Mighty Wings * Mudslide * Sarah O’Sarah * Hammer & Tongs * Conquerors
THE DARKNESS is: JUSTIN HAWKINS (vocals/lead guitar), DAN HAWKINS (guitars/backing vocals), FRANKIE POULLAIN (bass/backing vocals) and EMILY DOLAN DAVIES (drums/backing vocals).
www.thedarkness.co.uk
