DARKEST HOUR Hidden Hands Of A Sadist Nation (2003) CD

2003 was peak melodic death metal crossover, and Darkest Hour were one of the few American bands who actually understood what made the Gothenburg sound work rather than just borrowing the tremolo picking and calling it a day.

Hidden Hands of a Sadist Nation is the record that put them on the map outside of the DC hardcore scene they came up in, produced by Devin Townsend, which tells you everything about its ambitions and its sonic weight. It is aggressive, melodic, and surprisingly tight for a band still figuring out how far they wanted to push the metal side. The influence on the mid-2000s metalcore and melodic death metal wave that followed, locally in Australia and internationally, is hard to overstate. This is where that sound started getting serious.

Format: CD, full-length album. Released 2003. Country of origin: USA. Genre: Melodic Death Metal.

Fans of: Unearth, Bleeding Through, Caliban, I Killed the Prom Queen, The Black Dahlia Murder.