MUST DESTORY... THE DARKNESS!!!

The following review appeared in Kerrang! magazine. Its is reproduced here in its entirety.
god bless Kerrang!

THERE'S A man in a pair of furry trousers out in the audience. Well, not so much in the audience as above them, hoisted on the shoulders of a large, black-haired roadie while simultaneously screwing an outrageous solo from his guitar. Thirty seconds earlier, this same man was standing, sans guitar on his head on the stage, legs in the air, split like a sheepskin 'V'. Ninety seconds from now, he'll have his hands in the air, exhorting an audience who have braved a crippling tube strike to clap along in time to a song that sounds like Queen and AC/DC and Zodiac Mindwarp and Thin Lizzy throwing a wife-swapping party in a broom cupboard. His name is Justin Hawkins, and in his head this tiny bar in London's seediest area is Wembley Stadium, Madison Square Gardens and the Budokan rolled into one.

Hawkins' band are called The Darkness. They are currently the most talked-about rock band in Britain. Fashion bible 'Dazed and Confused' devoted 12 pages to the band a few months ago, their independently-released debut single, 'I Believe In A Thing Called Love' , was recently played on Radio 1 by Jo Whiley, and the quartet were recently voted Best Unsigned Band at Manchester's In The City industry schmoozefest. But don't let that put you off. The Darkness, you see, are here to light a firecracker under the arsehole of rock 'n' roll.

Thirty minutes before his band are due onstage, Justin Hawkins is circulating among the crowd in the front bar of the Water Rats. He's immediately recognisable: skinny as Iggy Pop, bad hair, salmon-pink T-shirt with the sleeves chopped off, his name tattooed at the top of his left arm (the 's' replaced by a lightning bolt). He's currently musing about the fuss hanging over his band's head.

"That's all very nice," he says with a shrug. "But it's not really real. We're not about playing in front of a hundred industry people. We want to take it out to the people. It's all about the music. All about the rock."

The Darkness know all about the rock. It's in the way they strut onstage to a riff so gloriously old school that Angus Young would wonder why he didn't write it in back in '74, then spend the next few minutes nailing it to the floor until it stops breathing. It's in guitar-hero-in-waiting - and Justin's marginally less emaciated younger brother - Dan Hawkins' omnipresent Thin Lizzy T-shirt. But most of all, it's in songs like 'Black Shuck', 'Best Of Me', and the stadium stomp of 'Get Your Hands Off My Woman, Motherfucker'. There's no doubting the fact that The Darkness will repel as many people as they attract because of the posturing, the preening, and the paint-peeling falsetto that propels their songs off the planet and out towards the third ring of Saturn. But it's this decoration, this air of flamboyant otherness, that makes the band so great. And if you don't like it, then you've always got Puddle Of Mudd.

This venue is only just big enough to hold The Darkness. Or rather it's only just big enough to hold Justin Hawkins. Dan and bassist Frankie Poullain lurk at the back of the stage, leaving their singer to soak up the spotlight. In Justin Hawkins' eyes, soaking up the spotlight involves pouting, shimmying, pointing, leaping, screaming and generally preening to an Olympic standard. Even the reduced circumstances of the Water Rats can't crush Hawkins' sense of showmanship. His band also, handily, has one bona fide classic song in 'Love On The Rocks (With No Ice)'. If The Darkness, as has been suggested, really are the new Queen, then 'Love On The Rocks...', dispatched here as a triumphant closer, is their 'Bohemian Rhapsody', 'Fat Bottomed Girls' and 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love' combined. It is big, bold and not a little ridiculous. Not unlike its creators, then.

After the show, The Darkness cram themselves into the venue's tiny dressing room, together with a handful of friends, fans and total strangers. "Sorry, we're all out of cocaine and girls," smiles Justin Hawkins, like a man who knows the situation won't be like that for too much longer.

Ignore the blood, the thunder and the waves of hype that will invariably spring up around the band over the next few months. There's only one thing you need to know. . Don't ever forget it.

Dave Everley

THE DARKNESS::