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Marathon Metal Monday part II (aka Metal Tuesday) All logic dictates that Dark Angel ought to have gone into severe creative decline following Darkness Descends. Observe:

• Strike 1) Any band playing an extreme derivative of “rock” (Death/Black/Thrash Metal, Grindcore, Crust punk, etc.) without significant evolution to their sound will probably enter into a state of diminishing returns starting with their 3rd lp. This rule applies most often to bands below the first tier in their chosen genre, but often afflicts the best of them. There are ways of dodging this slump, but it’s difficult ground to tread. As Dark Angel were playing basically the same style of thrash they began with, albeit increasingly more technical, it follows that they probably were not going to improve their song craft significantly now that they were most likely spending more time distracted by road life, (more drugs, more women, long bus rides), and probably trying to take breaks from road life.
• Strike 2) Loss of key members. A loss of key members integral in shaping a band’s sound can spell disaster for obvious reasons, especially when the remaining members choose to make a new lp. Following Darkness Descends, Dark Angel had to fill not only the former guitar slot of Jim Durkin, but also the dreaded replacement vocalist position. Brett Erikson of Viking stepped up as the new guitar player, and the always bloated looking Ron Rinehart stepped into the vocal position.
• Strike 3) Playing a style that has already reached a plateau in popularity and/or general creative possibilities. It’s pretty well accepted that thrash metal was a spent force by the end of the 80’s. To loosely quote Blade Runner “The light that burns twice as bright, burns twice as fast, and you have burnt so very, very bright”. After Reign In Blood and Master Of Puppets, thrash was in a tricky bind. Generally bands tried to play even more brutal than Reign In Blood (and also Kreator’s - Pleasure To Kill), at which point you’re going to be pushing into early Death Metal territory, or more progressive and technical than the Master Of Puppets template, at which point, shit gets tedious.

As You can see the cards are stacked against Dark Angel circa the late  80’s and they’re stacked TALL. I never had any interest in hearing their 3rd lp, Leave Scars until recently when I read about how good it is on the aforementioned (yesterday) Metal Inquisition blog, but once I did, I had to hear it. So it came to pass that Leave Scars is now my favorite entry in the Dark Angel catalog. It’s the album Darkness Descends wants to be, and frankly if they could have dreamed it up sooner, the world might have had an entirely different view of Dark Angel. Gene Hoglan’s drumming is more ferocious and speedy than ever, absolutely no disrespect to Paul Bostaph (:Rodney Dangerfield voice:), but Hoglan should have taken over on the kit during the Slayer/Grip Inc. era. Thank God/Satan he’s got that cartoon network deal paying the bills.Besides the ferocity of Gene Hoglan though there are 2 things that make this album work better than the last.

• 1) Serious increase in dynamic song writing.
• 2) Moderate increase in dynamic vocal  delivery.

In other words, the song-writing and vocals are stepped up a couple of notches. The songs have a huge increase in the number of tempo changes, and because of that it follows that the individual sections stand out better because they have something to contrast against. A great example of this is the epic jam “No One Answers”. You get some serious octopus styled drum action kicking things off, before going into the grooviest mosh part to date in their career. The kind of thing I don’t think the band would have taken the time for in their earlier days. A side note, the double kick in this section sounds awesome. Heavy and boomy and not typewriter-ish at all, which is because Gene Hoglan is legit and doesn’t need drum triggers. The riffing when the song takes full speed is practically at a Forced Entry/Vio-lence style level of difficulty, that is, about as technical and flashy as straight thrash metal can get. The riff-fest continues for almost 8 minutes with muscular narration by Rinehart who has a deeper delivery than Don Doty ever managed, and a more consistent one as well. Maybe the Hetfield to Doty’s Bauloff (R.I.P.). Not as wild or crazy, but with more of the necessary power and control. Leave Scars brings it all together. The speed and power of Darkness Descends, the crunch and bludgeoning mosh of the best Slayer, the technical prowess and ambition of Metallica (but with obviously much better drumming), a few brief melodic passages, everything is in place. Unfortunately, between 1986 and 1989 a few things had happened. Specifically:

• 1987) Scream Bloody Gore, Scum
• 1988) Reek Of Putrefaction, From Enslavement To Obliteration, Leporacy
• 1989) Slowly We Rot, Alters Of Madness, Left Hand Path, Symphonies of Sickness

In short, metal-heads invented Death Metal. Even if you write the heaviest Thrash album ever (and Leave Scars is a legitimate contender), it’s going to sound like Thin Lizzy up against debuts by Morbid Angel, Obituary, and Entombed. People had been talking about the rising Grind-core  and Death Metal trends since John Peel started playing Carcass and Napalm Death, and ‘89 was the year it really became impossible to ignore. There just wasn’t a lot of room for a band that had always been considered second class when a whole new crop of infinitely more extreme groups had stepped into the spotlight. Oh and, in case you forgot, this is the 2nd Dark Angel lp to have horrible crappy artwork. This one has a little kid in a room full of stuffed animals with an ominous shadow cast over the room like there’s a monster coming out of the closet. The Dark Angel logo is in 3D and the room seems to be bathed in pink neon light. God this record cover sucks so much. Any hope they might have had of being noticed for an outstanding achievement must have gone down the tubes with this one.When we meet Dark Angel again the year is 1991. Things are looking BAD. Thrash is dead. Like really dead. Metallica and Megadeth are playing A.O.R. rock versions of their old sounds, Slayer now has vocals that are screamed on key, Exodus is a distant memory, Death Metal is massive, and worst of all “Grunge” is breaking (or at least about to). I’m sure there’s pressure from the record label to do something commercial, and I will say Ron Rinehart’s vocals take on a little bit of a “…And Justice For All” type Hetfield quality on Dark Angel’s final lp, “Time Does Not Heal”, but other than that, there’s no concession for any popular trends of the day in heavy music. Actually “…And Justice” is a pretty good comparison for the music on here too, because it’s just endless riffing, and endless long songs. I can’t say it’s as good as the 2 lps that precede it, but I can respect it for being wildly self indulgent and hopeless of having any commercial appeal. How self indulgent you ask? “Time Does Not Heal”is infamously known for being comprised of 246 different riffs.  For a 9 song lp, that averages to a little more than 27 riffs per song. To say this is a challenging work that can only be taken on its own terms would be a cliched understatement.Commercially this album fared most likely worse than the previous ones, and again it has a terrible cover that could have only hurt sales, this time it has some C-grade model in a fuchsia turtle-neck trying to escape some kind of evil alleyway lair type thing. I can only wonder why. But horrible cover aside, I find it admirable that Dark Angel goes out with both guns blazing here, making the most complex, and over the top album they possibly could without changing their sound really, which is something few Thrash bands could lay claim to when all was said and done. I think that’s more than enough. Apologies for 2 bloated posts about a bay area thrash band, tomorrow it’s bidHARDCORE.com again. PEACE.