Locked in a Vacancy – It's Always Darkest… Review


Website: Locked in a Vacancy

Progressive hardcore. A crazy notion? Sure. But if it takes making a concept album to stand out from the crowd and create a name for onesself in the arty community, who could object?

It’s Always Darkest… tells the bleak story of the impact that our world and its current path of destruction has in destroying the human mind, yet with the uplifting epilogue that everyone has the ability to transcend the evils by cherishing the things they have while they’re still around. It’s no ray of sunshine, that’s for certain. Neither is the music, with all of it being brutally heavy, thrashing, polyrhythmic hardcore punctuated by the intensely harsh vocals of Dyami Bryant.

As for the songs on It’s Always Darkest… taken apart from the concept element, this is where things unravel a bit. Locked in a Vacancy steers out of control at times with their obscenely unique structures, leading songs like “The Death of Aslan” to collapse on themselves in a mess of syncopation. When they calm down a bit and weave the chaos into something a bit more even, such as “The Lion & the Unicorn”, “Cybertron Exodus”, and opening track “Existentially Ineffectual”, the results are incredible. It’s a matter of self control that doesn’t always seem to happen when it should.

It’s Always Darkest… is an extremely ambitious effort. While it has many flaws, it remains most intriguing. Hardcore has needed a kick in the ass of innovation for a long time and it’s better to see Locked in a Vacancy scramble a bit in pursuit of a unique sound than to hear yet another cookie-cutter hardcore release. With a bit more work, their next album could be legendary… although it certainly will be hard to top a song title like “Janet Jackson’s Ritalin Nation”.