Darker Still

Description

The new album from the cult metalcore band In the kitchen of Winston McCall's home in Byron Bay sits a refrigerator, emblazoned on one side with a quote from Tom Waits: "I want beautiful melodies telling me terrible things." According to the Parkway Drive frontman, it sums him up pretty well. It’s also true for one of the guiding tenets of “Darker Still,” the seventh full-length album born in this picturesque and serene corner of northeast New South Wales, Australia, and the defining musical statement to date from one of modern metal’s most revered bands. This album, according to McCall, is the vision he and his bandmates – guitarists Jeff Ling and Luke Kilpatrick, bassist Jia O’Connor, and drummer Ben Gordon – have had in their minds since they first got together in their parents’ basements in 2003. While “Darker Still” remains undeniably a Parkway Drive album, the band stands shoulder to shoulder with the greats of rock and metal – Metallica, Pantera, Machine Head, Guns N’ Roses – as much as their metalcore contemporaries. “I wanted a classic guitar sound for this album,” explains Ling, who attributes much of his inspiration to the connection his riffs have with the crowd at live shows.