Artist: Dark Angel
Label: Relativity Records
Release Date: 1991
Rating: 5 Skulls
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Title: Time Does Not Heal Artist: Dark Angel Label: Relativity Records Release Date: 1991
Rating: 5 Skulls |
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Reviewed by Death (10/23/02):
"It's always darkest before it goes completely black."Dark Angel went through several subtle stylistic iterations before the band called it quits following the release of 1991's Time Does Not Heal, an album that is quite possibly the final word on technical thrash and most assuredly the end of an era. Prior Dark Angel releases such as the seminal Darkness Descends and the early thrash of We Have Arrived have their merits, but to me, Dark Angel moved several steps forward with the awesome and powerful Leave Scars and essentially perfected the technical thrash genre with Time Does Not Heal, which followed.
Time Does Not Heal has it all, and is, in my mind, drummer Gene Hoglan's (Old Man's Child, Strapping Young Lad) masterpiece. Hoglan wrote the lyrics, did the drumming and played rythym guitar. The man wrote some sick-ass riffs. His drumming speaks for itself and stands tall as some of the most awesome work the genre has ever known. But at the heart of it all was the lyrics. Hoglan and company moved beyond the "Satan" stuff and the fantastic and into the realm of the psychological, contempletative and somewhat disturbed. Each track on Time Does Not Heal is a borderline poetic insight into the mind of a troubled individual. This, combined with absolute killer riffs and technical musicianship, makes the album probably one of the most underrated records in the history of metal.
The album kicks off with the opening title track, which riffs away with aggressive chunk and amazing technical precision drumming that almost borders on what you might call "progressive" if it was not so god damned heavy. It is a couple of minutes in before lyrics actually appear, and we are treated to the ruminations of a man reflecting on the scars left by his tortured youth. "Pain's Invention, Madness" is not only a technically genius display of metal musicianship but also a truly disturbed tale of someone who achieves a heightened reality and/or euphoric type of state through self-infliction of pain so severe that the mind must let itself go mad to protect it from the pain. Something like that. "The liberation of truth through administration of pain." Fucked up shit, but as always, brilliantly written and articulate, even highly literate.
From there, the awesome, crushing riffs abound throughout the album, and the intense lyrics continue to pummel with equal force. My two favorite songs on the album are the killer "Act of Contrition" and the even more killer "An Ancient Inherited Shame." Each is not only a musical masterpiece, but lyrically something to behold. "Act of Contrition" is clearly about obsession and fixation. Strikingly, "Ancient Inherited Shame" seems to describe the rape of women and the "bonding of women and horror" from the feminine perspective, something rarely seen in metal today and something unheard of back then. Yet this is no wimpy girly tale, this is a true horror story told from an intelligent perspective with something to say. Taking lines out of context diminishes the impact, but here is a little taste:
You need to crush me with your lividity
Does this make you feel more like a man
You can't have me, so you rape me
My innocence strangled by your handThis must be necrophilia, for I am dead inside
Your violent misogyny, your strength drowns my cries
In shock, I'm crippled with disbelief
This can't be happening to me
Oh god, this hurts, I'm bleeding from friction
"Unconcious" I'm pleading to be...You just didn't see this shit in metal lyrics back then, especially not in a lengthy, multi-part song with lots of parts and riffs and drama and musicianship. In the end, Tiem Does Not Heal is not just a great album, it truly is Hoglan's and Dark Angel's masterpiece, with its predecessor Leave Scars not too far behind.
The word is out now that Dark Angel will be reforming for a mini-tour later this year. As it should, the reunion will include guitarist Jim Durkin, who unfortunately left before the recording of Time Does Not Heal. While Time may not be Dark Angel's best known album , and the trend with many of the reforming or still-playing 80's thrash bands is to focus on their "classic" early albums (Flotsam and Jetsam emphasize Doomsday for the Deceiver, Destruction emphasizes Infernal Overkill), often to the exclusion of the original lineup's final efforts, frankly, most of my favorite bands from this genre were still making good records at the time of their demise. I liked Release From Agony by Destruction, and I liked later Flotsam records. I also think Leave Scars (which Durkin does play on) and Time are by far Dark Angel's strongest efforts. Heck, I love "The Burning of Sodom" just as much as the next guy, but I think Dark Angel developed its sound in the early 90's to such an awesome place that it would be ashamed if we are not treated to some of the later songs as part of the set. Just because thrash was beginning to commercially wear thin at the time of Time's release doesn't mean it isn't Dark Angel's strongest record.
It is.
P.S. - check out this quote from the surprisingly dead-on AMG Dark Angel bio (I accessed it through www.cdnow.com, just as I was about to send this review off to the MJ editor for publication). I think it sums it up nicely: "Hailed by critics for the sheer creative scope of its ambitious songwriting, Time Does Not Heal was considered the last word on technical thrash metal, but arrived at the end of thrash metal's time in the limelight and sold poorly."
Nice to see the "real" critics get one right for a change.
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