Flash back to the year 2003. Emo and punk bands are gaining traction in the mainstream in a way that had never been seen before, and hair metal bands seemed to be all but forgotten. So what was a band like The Darkness to believe in when record labels seemed largely disinterested in signing a band that was such an unashamed throwback to the 80’s hair metal era? The Darkness stormed onto the music scene in the fall of 2003 with a single that made major traction called “I Believe In A Thing Called Love.” The music video was hilariously ridiculous, but the music that accompanied it was a blast of guitar-driven rock & roll that sounded different than anything else on the radio. The single did so well in the United States that the band was able to book a headlining tour of major clubs that largely sold out across the country. The beauty of The Darkness’s debut, Permission To Land, was that the band never took themselves too seriously, and was willing to go all out in their love for the hair metal genre, and re-capture the spirit of the 80’s in an entirely different decade.
As surefire of a hit as “I Believe In A Thing Called Love” was, it’s hard to fathom why Atlantic Records put two other singles (“Get Your Hands Off My Woman” and “Growing On Me”) ahead of it in the promotion cycle. The album kicks off with the guitar bliss of “Black Shuck,” with the lyrics being based on the legend of a dog that haunts a church of nearby village of Blythburg, and highlights lead singer, Justin Hawkins, captivating ability to go from a crisp croon to a rewarding falsetto at the drop of a hat.
”Get Your Hands Off My Woman” follows the raucous opener with a track about respecting the personal space of females, and the edited version of the song features a funny replacement of, “Get your hands off of my woman mother fucker,” with “Get your hands off of my woman melon farmer.” These little lyrical swaps didn’t do much to avoid the moniker of the band being labeled as a playful take on the hair metal genre. Add in a song called “Growing On Me,” that appears to be about genital warts, and it’s hard for the band to escape that label of being a bit of a parody. The songs are still a blast and a half to listen to, even if the lyrics are as wild as you can imagine.
Permission To Land also features some great hair metal ballads like “Love Is Only a Feeling” and “Holding My Own,” that helped to balance out the material on the record. Other standouts like “Givin’ Up,” and the pop guitar bliss of “Friday Night,” further accentuated the band’s ability to re-capture the spirit of the glory days of the genre, even if they happened to be born in the wrong era. The expansive, near six-minute song “Love On the Rocks With No Ice” is an instance of where the band tries to reel in the silliness of their lyrical material, but it seems a tad out of place in an album filled with unabashed, feel-good anthems.
The Darkness captured lightning in a bottle on Permission To Land, and the album has since been certified Gold in the U.S., with even further success in the U.K. by going 4x platinum overseas. The band has since released five additional albums to add to their discography, and will be celebrating their breakthrough debut LP through both a deluxe and standard vinyl reissue, paired with a headlining tour of the states to play the record from front to back. While naysayers may write off The Darkness as a parody of the hair metal genre, it’s really hard to not enjoy the music that blares off the speakers when Permission To Land comes on. “I Believe In A Thing Called Love” made everyone want to air guitar that blazing solo at a time when bands were taking themselves a bit too seriously, so that’s what made The Darkness so refreshing. So be sure to turn the dial to 11, and rock out to the band’s epic debut one more time.