The Darkness were normally shelved in the very same category as all of the other garage-rock phenoms of the early 2000’s that came and went by in about 15 minutes – The Strokes, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and on a lower level, Interpol. But unlike some of those other groups, this platter was a heck of a lot of unabashed, unpretentious fun. Derivative? Oh sure. But that was beside the point. They were a complete throwback – a hydra-headed hybrid of Queen, Thin Lizzy, and dozens of other early 70’s stadium brawn-rock bands, with a bit of ’80’s synth-tech thrown in here and there – right down to the look; the bass player sported a handlebar mustache, the lead singer was heroin-chic skinny, and oh by the way we haven’t even got to the matter of the falsetto vocals yet…. Permission to Land, just with the elements detailed above, really could have sucked. Instead, it’s an engaging work that puts the band’s eccentric personality on full blast, take it or leave it. In their native UK, this disc was far more popular with five of the ten tracks released as singles. Stateside, there was only one big hit – the synthesizer-spiced driving rocker “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” – which compared to the faster-paced songs here is pretty much run-of-the-mill Darkness, but with more energy and I would imagine has become a signature song for them. I do vaguely remember the song had quite the outrageous video which the cover art shares a theme with as well. I won’t say The Darkness are for everyone (by no means) – certainly, their very image and style put them in a niche from the jump, but at least on their debut CD, they looked like they knew how to maximize all the style’s strengths, and hide the weaknesses.
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