LPCDreissues: Looking forward to the past

• Packaging: Printed inner sleeve with lyrics, merch card and illustrated booklet

Darkness Descends is the legendary second album by Californian thrash metal band Dark Angel, originally released by Combat Records in 1986. Ferocious, relentlessly fast and considerably darker than the band's debut, it has become one of the defining recordings of the more extreme side of 1980s thrash metal.

The album marked the first Dark Angel studio appearance of drummer Gene Hoglan, whose extraordinary combination of speed, precision and power became one of the defining elements of the band's sound. Alongside vocalist Don Doty, guitarists Jim Durkin and Eric Meyer and bassist Rob Yahn, Hoglan helped push the group toward a level of intensity that few contemporary thrash bands could match.

The opening title track immediately establishes the record's atmosphere, followed by the furious The Burning Of Sodom, Hunger Of The Undead and a re-recorded version of the early Dark Angel classic Merciless Death. The second side includes the devastating Death Is Certain (Life Is Not), the lengthy and increasingly progressive Black Prophecies and the explosive closing track Perish In Flames.

Produced by Randy Burns, who was also responsible for several important thrash recordings of the period, Darkness Descends combines breakneck speed with unusually long and complex arrangements, ominous riffing and an oppressive atmosphere. The album became a major influence on the increasingly extreme thrash, death and technical metal styles that followed.

Track Listing:

Side A

1. Darkness Descends – 5:52
2. The Burning Of Sodom – 3:18
3. Hunger Of The Undead – 4:18
4. Merciless Death – 4:07

Side B

1. Death Is Certain (Life Is Not) – 4:18
2. Black Prophecies – 8:34
3. Perish In Flames – 4:51