CD REVIEW: My Darkest Days - Self Titled

Speaking of great stuff on the charts-

So, you’re in a hot band; your frontman’s brother is the bassist in Three Days Grace, Mr. Kroeger’s got you on his label, you have a single called “Porn Star Dancing” tearing up the charts, and somehow you’ve aroused the interests of Zakk Wylde and Ludacris (you know the guy; his outfit is RIDICULOUS). Could this be “next big thing” material I smell?

… Scratch that; somebody open a window.

My friends and I, being the quintessential music nerds we are, have a little game we like to play. Now that I think about it, it’s a little perverse. We have an ongoing competition of sorts: to find the absolute foulest drivel ever crafted by human beings and dubbed “music.” This all sounds a little a masochistic, but let’s be honest, few things in life bring a music critic more glee and indignation than finding the Brokencyde’s and Dot Dot Curves of the world (and tormenting one's friends/family/neighbors in the process.)

I had really been on my game this past year, but as luck would have it, I was eclipsed. One of my buddies found a real gem this past summer, one that this reviewer will have a hell of a time topping any time soon (and the radio faithful will have the pleasure of enduring till year’s end). It was by this individual’s hand that I was introduced to Ontario’s My Darkest Days and the force of nature known as “Porn Star Dancing.” There are simply times when description fails and one must experience something directly to fully grasp it. This is one such case, but if you really must skip it, I have provided a convenient summary of video highlights below:

Porn Star Highlights:
-Buildings!
-Zakk Wylde/Guitar Wankery!
-Fire!
-Zakk Wylde/Guitar Wankery, with Fire, not giving a shit about the band or song he’s performing on.
-Poles!
-Product Placement!
-Scantily Clad Lay-days!
-Dudes who would never get said “Scantily Clad Lay-days!”
-Chad Kroeger’s best haircut to date!
-Ludacris suddenly coming out of big, random door for utterly forgettable guest spot...

Needless to say, after hearing this doozey of tune, reviewing it, let alone, listening to My Darkest Day’s debut album in its entirety was hardly at the top of my to do list, but that musical masochist got me again. I had fully intended, based on my surface judgments of the band and their hit single, to sit down at my desk and promptly deliver the written equivalent of a flaming bag of hud right to their doorstep, yet I found that My Darkest Days were not quite what I had anticipated. 

“Move Your Body” is probably as conventional of an opener as one can expect to hear on an album with a cartoon she-devil on the front, yet it isn’t totally unlikeable. Despite the generic Nickelback riff that kicks off the track, the song boasts some unexpectedly pleasant electronic ear candy and a chorus that, while lyrically lacking, is undeniably infectious. Not bad, not bad at all. And along came the bridge.

You want me tapping on your back door

You’ve got me tapping on your back door baby

I got you acting like you want more

Now that I’m tapping on your back door baby.

-Move Your Body

That’s poetry right there, folks; poetry from the “hands in the pants” kid in the back of your fourth grade class. Yet, what makes this little stanza so remarkable is not even so much the fact that the song is completely and unapologetically about "getting it on" (and bragging rather ham-fistedly about it), it is just impressive the way vocalist Matt Walst is able to use a term like “back door” in the same manner in which Fred Durst drops the F-bomb. Gutsy stuff right here. My Darkest Days have a splendid way of re-affirming expectations while completely defying them.

Alright, so lyrics are clearly not the band’s strong suit, or perhaps, they just aren’t Kroeger’s. As is the case with his other “findings,” the Nickelback frontman has co-written most of the material. This relationship lends My Darkest Days the same puzzling bipolarity as their mentor’s main gig. All but a couple of the tracks fall into two neat categories: sleazy hardrockers narrated from the perspective of people no real human beings would ever want to associate with, and brooding tunes about heartbreak, and feelings, and other emotional driftwood. It’s a formula that works time and again. However, it is precisely this formula that captures the uncomfortable position the band is currently stuck in.

My Darkest Days have been together since 2005 and until Kroeger very recently came into the fold, the group was strictly an angst-fueled alt rock band along the lines of the aforementioned Three Days Grace. This is evidenced by their 2008 demos that, while not quite the epitome of originality, were wholly devoid of the “cock rock” slop that oozes from nearly every inch of their debut. 

Matt Walst also had a lot more in common vocally with Kurt Cobain than he did, say, a Canadian with bad facial hair. In fact, Walst actually has a pretty decent voice on the record when he’s not trying his damnedest to sound like a seductive chain-smoker. Kroeger's hand has definitely affected the group's style and one would be hard-pressed to say it's for the better.

There are some instances, though, where My Darkest Day's forced influences are minimized as seen in the two outliers referenced earlier, “Set it on Fire” and “Come Undone.” Have you ever wondered what Hinder’s “Lips of Angel” would sound like with a cool island twist? No? Then don’t bother with the first of these.

 “Come Undone” fairs significantly better and is easily the best track on the album which is quite an irony given the fact that it's a cover. The band is neither angsty nor oafish on their remake of the Duran Duran classic, instead capturing an actual sense of earnest feeling and mood that is absent from most of the disk. This instance best illustrates what the band could be; a straightforward rock outlet with a modern sound that pays due respect to the past. 

Alas, the group has a lot of growing to do before they get there. 

1.5 devilsticks out of 5

(originally posted on www.411mania.com/music)