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Traditionally in Boston, Massachusetts, sometime in mid-April, the Boston Marathon is run by hundreds of people more physically fit than me, effectively shutting the entire city down, and creating a long weekend for all non-retail employed residents. As a celebration of this, I’ve prepared, partially in advance, a MARATHON METAL MONDAY posting. By that I mean it shall be longer and more detailed than average, so long in fact that it’s spilling over into tomorrow’s posting. Unnecessary? Maybe, but I’m having fun. I’d like to give a shoot out to MetalInquisition.Blogspot.com today for partially inspiring this post with their great Death Angel vs. Dark Angel posting, and for generally sending me into thrash metal overload recently with these kind of discussions.

Metal Monday Vol. 17 (part I); Marathon edition:

Dark Angel might win the title for “best of the also-rans” which sucks because they’re actually pretty awesome and deserve better. But wait, before anything, please check out this DISGUSTING photo of the band below. Based on this photo I would wager that no one in the group has slept in 5-10 days, opting instead to do their best to smoke an entire garbage bag full of carpet meth, possibly pausing to eat something without any nutritional value like a fruit roll-up or some french fries. I’m not sure if you eat when you’re high on meth for an entire week? Seriously this should be on the cover of a Carcass lp it’s so disgusting looking: http://www.painkillerrecords.com/cc/bidhc2/126_photo.jpg

Hey WELCOME BACK! I hope that you didn’t have too much trouble cleaning the puke off your computer screen.

Dark Angel got their start in the Bay Area like a million other thrash metal bands, around ‘83 or ‘84. They went through the requisite lineup changes of singers, guitar players, roadies, got some demos out into the tape trading scene and made a name on the local gig circuit. It’s pretty clear from the get-go they were most influenced by their much better known bay area brethren, Slayer, and because of this their career could only exist in the shadow of Slayer who got all the breaks that Dark Angel never really could. Their first album (which spurred me into making this post) “We Have Arrived” (ha, what a title), originally came out in ‘85 on Metal Storm records with a cool looking pen and ink black and white cover with demons, zombified metal heads and a big tombstone. In fact this was the only time in Dark Angel’s entire career when they would have a good looking album cover. I think there is actually a later issue on Combat or Metal Blade with a stupid looking revised cover. What a shame! Musically things are pretty similar to Slayer’s “Show No Mercy” which leads me to believe these are probably songs they had been gigging out with for a couple years already because at that point this stuff ought to have sounded a little outdated. This would be from the same year Slayer was already issuing Hell Awaits which I’ll get back to in a minute, but at any rate, they were being outclassed by their competition here. No Tomorrow will give the seasoned listener a bit of a laugh when the main riff kicks up as it’s more or less the “Ice Ice Baby” to Hit The Light’s “Under Pressure”. Every time I listen I expect the first line to be “No Life ‘Til Leather”. Of course they try to speed it up so you don’t notice as much, but it’s hard not to. Despite all this, “We Have Arrived” (maybe it needs a subtitle like … “Late For the Party” or something) is pretty durable speed/thrash offering, like a junior “Bonded By Blood” or the aforementioned “Show No Mercy”.

As I noted already Hell Awaits came out in ‘85, and if you need any more proof on how much of an influence Slayer was on Dark Angel, look no further than their second album, and by far best known, Darkness Descends. Hell Awaits was extremely progressive and technical for its time. The songs are probably the longest of Slayer’s career, there’s numerous riffs in every song, and the vibe is really dark, an early prediction of death metal I suppose. Thus when Dark Angel assembled their follow-up with a new drummer, Gene Hoglan, who today has the reputation of being one of the fastest and most precise drummers in metal, they adjusted their level of precision and shredding to match. Also, for you tv fans, he’s one of the studio musicians that plays on the Metalocalypse cartoon show. Anyhow with a world class drummer Dark Angel was set to try and out-tech Hell Awaits, to beat Slayer at their own game, and one would assume ascend to the level of Bay Area main attraction. Unfortunately for them, this was the year Slayer released Reign in Blood and Metallica issued Master of Puppets. OUCH. First of all the very band they’re obviously copying pulls a coup on the scene, signs to a major label, and then issues an album where half the songs are less than 3 minutes, and manages to out-brutalize everyone. Secondly you’ve got Metallica proving even with the worst drummer out there they can still write the most technical and progressive album of the year.

Darkness Descends breaks open with a massive sounding title track that has a serious slam inducing intro, which perfectly follows the Hell Awaits template. You can just see the denim vests flying. But what Dark Angel really came to do, and mainly what they show off on this album is speed. I’m going to agree with the opinions of many, that for the era Darkness Descends is one of the fastest records around and it’s extremely tight as well. Every 16th note falls exactly into place like bullets fired from that gatling gun Arnold is lugging around in T2. I guess the biggest difference compared to Slayer, is that Dark Angel actually have relatively coherent solos, which they’re very happy to show off to you at various intervals. A secondary, but probably more important difference is that even at their most self indulgent, and least commercial, Slayer had a knack for bludgeoning you with things that were catchy. They had a sense of when it was time to change tempo, when the song didn’t need another bridge, and I say that full well realizing that Hell Awaits is a monstrously self indulgent release. Because even at that, Darkness Descends is more so, and though it’s still EXTREMELY good, and totally classic, it’s also a total blur by the end of the first side. There’s just a bit too much speed, too many monotone shouts, too much tremolo picking and pinched note accents for much sense to be made of the proceedings. I wouldn’t say that it’s impenetrable, but it’s VERY dense. To make matters worse, Darkness Descends begins a 3 album streak of some of the WORST cover art ever to see the light of day. On this album we have a pair of claymation hands popping out of the ground in front of a Styrofoam tombstone, and a big ugly purple yellow and red Dark Angel logo next to it. This cover would be extremely scary if: you’re 6 years old, scared by the video for Thriller, or afraid of clay. I cannot believe anyone at the label OK’d this. Seriously no one could get a couple hours of Ed Repka’s time? Welcome to Will Vinton’s Spooky Halloween Party, Featuring the California Raisins, and TV’s Gene Hoglan!!!

Tomorrow you get part 2 my Marathon posting… and then I’ll get back to the hardcore and punk I promise. I’ve been thrashing all around and acting like a maniac just a little too much lately.