Rating: NN
How do the Darkness top their 3.5-million-selling debut, Permission To Land? They were trying to figure that out themselves after canning bassist Francis Poullain in the middle of recording One Way Ticket To Hell… And Back. The answer, evidently, is to try to sound even more like Queen. Now that they have a recording mega-budget and Queen’s legendary sound architect, Roy Thomas Baker, calling the shots, the Darkness can indulge their every Queen-inspired fantasy, and why stop there? String section? Got it. Pan flute virtuoso? Check. They had everything they needed to create a tongue-in-cheek epic except for some decent tunes. Apart from the catchy title track – the first and really only choice for a lead single – there’s little to recommend here other than a song about baldness fears that Rush did much better 30 years ago on Caress Of Steel. Joke’s over.