The history of THE 69 EYES is a long one, well longish.  Formed in the seedy bars of Helsinki in 1989 these Finnish rockers originally followed in the footsteps of their Glitter Glam brethren HANOI ROCKS before eventually taking a darker path adding a whole lot of more black eyeliner, black leather and sunglass' at any time of the day (especially during the midnight hour, when the ghouls come out to play).  Ditching the glitter and replacing it with something much more Gothic.

The bands sound on this their appropriately numbered opus #13 (I suspect every record THE 69 EYES bring out is #13) "Death Of Darkness" an broad mix of Goth of the twangely 80s style of THE MISSION and THE CULT , Heavy Rock, Rockabilly, and the pop-tinged punk of BILLY IDOL.  I mean when your singer sounds like a cross between Wayne Hussy, Mr. Idol and Evil Elvis you aren't going to sound like operatic Power-Metal or incomprehensible death grunting Death-Metal bands so prevalent in their native Scandinavia.  And not a bad thing.

A quick word on the cover design.  At first glance you can see it is based on a very intricate Bandana, which I have to admit I thought was very cool. Checking out their shop, which you can do from the web link above, a monochrome version is indeed available from their shop.  I might have to see what postage is like and partake!  Anyway, it is a cool image for a cool album.

Opening up with the title track "Death Of Darkness" is a very laid-back and cool way to slide into this album.  It sets the brooding tone, but interesting uses two voices.  The dark tones of Jyrki 69 deep well-oiled tones and a scary-scratchy screechy vocal (I don't know who this is, but I cannot imagine them coming out of the same person.

Track two "Drive" channels BILLY'S rebellious yell (THE 69 EYES without a face? Sorry could not resist the dad joke).

"Gotta Rock" is a cover of Finnish rockers BOYCOTT, and has some interesting and cool lyrics (Be-Bop-A-Lula come on I wanna ride with you), so wanting to find out where a cool song like this come from, well, it could not be any more different if it tried! A funky faster paced, and definitely a product of its late 80's era.  The EYES version is simply, and I'm afraid I have to use that word again, cooler, and it turned into something entirely different.

The countryfied goth nature of "This Murder Takes Two" would make it way at home in an episode of Sons Of Anarchy originally came out of an aborted session with John Carter Cash (the son of the Man In Black) and with the addition of the female perspective from Kat Von D make this murder ballad a standout track.

"California" is the MISSION on happy pills.  "Call Me Snake" is a song about John Carpenter's early 80's Sci-Fi action film "Escape From New York", which was set in not to distant future of 1997 where the main character, ex-soldier, current prisoner Snake Plisskin (Kurt Russel) must break into and escape from New York to rescue the President of the USA, after which he will be pardoned of his crimes.  A cheesy film, thankfully a much better, and more fun song.  Apparently there is to be a remake, perhaps it can have a great theme song!

And frankly the album carry's on the same fashion, a mixture of 80s influenced Goth Rock with the right amount of glittery guitar work to off-set against the deep, dark and brooding vocals.

And finally "Outlaws" finishes in a similar way to where we started.  A slower-paced and slightly more (if possible), brooding song, that really is an appropriate, and in its way uplifting finish to an interesting album.

This really isn't my normal thing, but I have to say THE 69 EYES have a new fan in me.