Straight out of Northallton England, DARK HEART is back with their first full length LP since 1984! After so long away from the studio, one would would expect that they'd have something of substance to convey, but alas, as kind as I want to be due to their own enthusiasm, and skill-level, I am sorry to say that this was quite possibly the most boring album I've ever reviewed. It's not "bad" per se, it's just "boring"...ya know?

I tried to get into it, really. The quality of the song writing is kind of there, the sound is pretty solid, but stylistically it's very generic, and entirely too slow. After a while I just started skipping ahead at random points. This album is so consistently boring that no matter how long the distance between points I'd selected, the song sounded unperturbed, and inviolate. As if the album were one continuous, boring song. I'm not even sure I'd classify this as "hard rock". Tempo-wise, it is slow, and plodding. If I were to give it's ilk a genre, I'd call it "sludge-waltz". It's got distortion, and some mean-sounding riffs, but is purposelessly slow.

I found it odd too. Some of the riffs in the verses of "Degrees Of Separation" reminded me a bit of FASTWAY, and GREAT WHITE. More than a mild bit of attitude in there, and Alan's voice was just awesome. I really want to be nice to these guys, but the pace makes even the slowest of rock ballads from the 80s seem like thrash metal by comparison. The rhythms aren't all that complex, the lyrics themselves are almost cringe-worthingly cliché, and stuck in a pre-90s mode of rock.

In "House Of Usurer" I found kinship with DARK HEART, as I share their seemingly endless disdain for usury. And while I thought that was about all I would enjoy about this album, the next song, "Breaking The Chains" finally broke out of the snail-crawl speed of the rest of the album. That was really the best I could find to say about this offering. That said, going by the title, I'm not 100% sure, but I think this song was actually the same song that DARK HEART released as a single in 1987. It would explain why that 1 song was 20-30% faster than the rest of the album.

As I said before, I want to be nice to these guys, but I also want to be honest. Musically, this album was good. My biggest, and only real complaint was the pace of the songs. The production quality was good, and well recorded. The tone was crunchy with distortion, and each contributor was clean, and discernible. At the same time, I feel like these guys should have spent more time listening to their contemporaries for the last 40 years. Nick seemed spot-on with some of his leads, but the rhythms left a lot to be desired. It seemed to blandly consist of a grouping of hooks, and musical fads, without enough mutual context to give them meaning as a whole. Maybe, better luck next time?