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PERMISSION TO LAND
The Darkness
(Atlantic/Warner)
There are countless glam and metal bands whose ridiculous antics and homoerotic machismo will make you laugh out loud. New U.K. darlings The Darkness are one step ahead of them, though -- they're actually trying to crack you up.
At least, we assume that's the intent behind having a guy cavort about in a unitard, shrieking lines like "Get your hands off of my woman, motherf--er!" in a helium-balloon falsetto while a power trio cranks out balls-to-the-wall riffs nicked wholesale from AC/DC's back catalogue.
Thankfully, though, and not just a little amazingly, this retro-rawk foursome aren't just some bunch of Spinal Tap parodists with more legitimate accents. Sure, The Darkness's tongues never stray too far from their cheeks on their colourful 38-minute debut Permission to Land. But most of these 10 tunes -- from the devil-dog pelvis-grinder Black Shuck to the harmonized-guitar power ballad Love is Only a Feeling -- deftly strike a near-flawless balance between sly spoofery and spot-on homage to the hard-rocking hedonism and zebra-striped sartorial splendor of '70s icons like Thin Lizzy, Queen and Sparks.
And as the glitter ball spins, the dry ice swirls and the pyro goes off, The Darkness prove what Spinal Tap taught us lo, those many years ago: There really is a fine line between clever and stupid.
Track Listing