Album Review: The Darkness - Easter Is Cancelled

Easter is cancelled, and in its place The Darkness have released a new concept album, featuring ten catchy rock songs you’ve almost heard before.

Each track is addictively familiar. But don’t be fooled, the tracks frequently shift gear, especially in Heavy Metal Lover, which bounces between gentle ballad and hardcore metal. With brief but powerful guitar solos and Justin Hawkins' signature falsetto, Easter Is Cancelled is a high energy salute to everything rock. And while at a first glance it comes off as a bit cliché, maybe that’s the point.

Easter Is Cancelled is part mockery, part revelation, The Darkness painting themselves as the heroes of rock’n’roll whose mission is to "challenge the establishment" and "other rock’n’roll artists... who have given up in favour of easy celebrity".

Not known for taking anything seriously, least of all themselves, this new album proves this more than ever. The album opens with the declaration Rock And Roll Deserves To Die and ends its final track, We Are The Guitar Men with, the line "long live rock and roll". It comes full circle, with a delightful mix of absolute bangers in between.