Stabbing Westward — Darkest Days

"Everything I touch I break"... 16 songs of melancholy and personal breakdowns are ready from Stabbing Westward. With singer Christopher Hall as the natural focus, the songs are surprisingly dark for a band in this genre.

Under normal circumstances, I would view this album - and the band's whole discography as well - as a result of the once popular grunge bands of the first half of the nineties, but something is different here. The slow and gloomy intro already suggests so; and as the album continues on, the message conveyed here is clear: THERE IS NO HOPE. The album is, according to the band, focused this way:

"Darkest Days is made up of 4 acts, each portraying a different emotional phase one goes through after a break-up. The first act is about the ways you mess up (Darkest Days, Everything I Touch I Break, How Can I Hold On, and Drugstore). The second act is about being hopefull the person is still around (You Complete Me, Save Yourself, Haunting Me, Torn Apart, and Sometimes It Hurts). The third act is about hitting bottom (Drowning, Desperate Now, and Goodbye). The fourth act is about emerging from darkness and sticking to what you believe in (When I'm Dead, The Thing I Hate, On Your Way Down, and Waking Up Beside You)."

And the music follows suit. The first tracks are clearly the most solid songs, I'd actually go as far as to say that they are the best on the album. From there, the album stagnates a bit. Come on, there are fourteen songs, and in this dark-grunge genre it's hard to differentiate those fourteen songs enough and still have a concept album. Mind you: there's nothing wrong technically, and it's no surprise Chris Hall is the center of the band, he has a very powerful and versatile voice - the closest comparison would probably be Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails).

The artwork is absolutely brilliant and fits perfectly in with the concept. It depicts broken clay/human hybrid figures in various stages of the experience; trying to take shelter, sitting on a chair contemplating, overwhelmed by anger and so on - but all have one thing in common: their fragility and helplessness. Again, much more twisted and broody than your average grunge-ish release.

All in all, the album doesn't have a bad song on it, and the first few songs are really, really good in fact. However, the more the album proceeds, the less identity the songs have in comparison with the ones before. Alas, a nice release that could have been a smash hit if a little more creativity was put into it.