Darkest Days (Clean) [Clean]

Stabbing Westward | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 7, 1998)
• Original Release Date: April 7, 1998
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Clean
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B0000062IR
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (203 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #466,117 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Darkest Days

2. Everything I Touch

3. How Can I Hold On

4. Drugstore

5. You Complete Me

6. Save Yourself

7. Haunting Me

8. Torn Apart

9. Sometimes It Hurts

10. Drowning

11. Desperate Now

12. Goodbye

13. When I'm Dead

14. The Thing I Hate

15. On Your Way Down

16. Waking Up Beside You

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An almost perfect album, July 10, 2003

By 

Barb Caffrey "writer-for-hire" (In a Midwest State (of mind), USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Darkest Days (Audio CD)

"Darkest Days" is a nearly flawless album by Stabbing Westward, and it's definitely the best album they ever put out. From the beginning song, "Darkest Day," to the ending song, "Waking Up Beside You," Christopher Hall and the boys discover variations on the theme of loneliness, and they are truly musical, lyrical, and painful.

"Save Yourself" is one of my favorites on this album. It's an oddly despairing, yet inspiring, song. Hall sings about empowerment, and how he's not about to save anyone, because he can't even save himself. Like I said; very ironic, yet very moving. Five stars for that one.

Right before that is another of my favorites, the only truly "happy" song on this album, "You Complete Me." Here, Hall sings of the happier, quieter moments in a relationship, where people truly feel a part of one another. Five stars for that.

"Torn Apart" and "Sometimes it Hurts" are both about when a relationship breaks up, and how bad it feels. The next three songs, "Drowning, "Desperate Now," and "Goodbye," talk about how it might be better sometimes to die than deal with all that pain. Stabbing Westward does this mood the best in the first song, "Drowning," where it's all very subdued, soft, and a real mood breaker. "Desperate Now" is more like an opera, whereas "Goodbye" is half-and-half between the two. Five for "Drowning," four for the others.

The next two songs are full of anger and rage. "When I'm Dead" talks about how the other person should have treated them better, while "The Thing I Hate" talks about how we all worry that we're turning into whatever we hate when we feel miserable. Five stars for each of them.

The other songs, "On Your Way Down," "Everything I Touch (I Break)" and the others are all excellent, nearly perfect.

So, as I said, it's an almost perfect album. The only things that mar it are the occasional flatness of Christopher Hall's vocals (which could be said to be for emotional effect) and, oddly enough, the layout of the album. It might have worked a bit better if the three down songs "Goodbye," "Drowning" and "Desperate Now" weren't all lined up in a row; that lessens their impact. In addition, putting two back to back hard rockers _after_ those three slower, sadder songs is also a bit of unusually odd packaging. If they'd been intermingled, it would have been more of a paradigm of a relationship, as people go through many feelings quickly when a relationship ends.

The last song, "Waking Up Beside You" is probably the best song Stabbing Westward ever recorded. It's emotionally powerful, heartwrenching, and sad. Hall sang it to perfection, shading the lyrics a touch here and there to add emphasis.

It's really a shame Stabbing Westward broke up after their next, self-titled album, because they had a great deal of promise. Still, they left us this album behind, which is better than at least 90% of everything else I've heard in the last ten years.

A shade under five stars, recommended.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the greatest CD's, by far the band's best work, March 10, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Darkest Days (Audio CD)

It is obvious that Stabbing Westward's music has greatly grown and matured ever since their original CD; "Ungod". "Wither Blister Burn & Peel" was a great follow-up, but this album is the band's best work. I was actually very surprised to read many fan's reviews, saying that this album wasn't as carefully put together and didn't have the same energy or power behind it.

If you listen closely to the lyric's of the songs, the general flow of the music, and the way the songs are structured, you will notice that the album is essentially written in four parts. Similar to the rest of Stabbing Westward's work, the CD focuses on relationships and where they go wrong. The other theme present is how we mess up in life and how to get back on the right track. A very depressing album.

The first four songs focus on how we mess up in life and the terrible, threatening mistakes we make. "Darkest Days" is a great opening song, makes great use of the band's percussion and Chris Hall's emotional lyrics. Second is "Everything I Touch", a powerful song discussing how he ruins everything he gets involved with. Afterwards are (in my opinion) the two best songs on the album. "How Can I Hold On? (Dog Attack)" is a fast-paced gothic/industrial tune that gets the adrenaline going. The follow-up is "Drugstore", the most emotionally-charged song on the CD, talking about drug abuse and the influence that people have on each other.

The second portion of the album deals with relationships, specifically the ones that are torn apart by lies, disagreements, etc. "You Complete Me" is really the only upbeat song in this section, and pretty much on the album as well. "Save Yourself", "Haunting Me", and "Torn Apart" are more adrenaline-pumping songs, all strong and fast-paced.

Then, sitting right in the middle is the portion to listen to when you're feeling down, when you've reached that low point in life that's hard to get out of. "Drowning" and "Goodbye" are slow-moving, but no less emotional than anything else on here. But the real standout's in this section are "Sometimes It Hurts" and "Desperate Now".

Wrapping the album up is the most emotion-filled, most powerful portion of the entire album. The theme behind it is standing behind your beliefs in life. The pure anger and violence in "When I'm Dead" and "The Thing I Hate" makes them some of the best industrial tunes out there. "On Your Way Down" uses skillful guitar playing and lyrics, which refer to how celebrities screw people over in life to get to the top. The closing track on the album, "Waking Up Beside You" is enough to bring a lot of people to tears. This song rises above the majority of the rest of the band's work.

Although the album is split into four general themes and sections, it also has the capability to flow through as one theme, a strange talent that is rare to find in a CD and a band itself. I strongly recommend this, and anything else by Stabbing Westward, to anyone who likes hard rock and industrial.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Full of emotion and intesnity, August 4, 2000

By 

"halo_tragedy" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Darkest Days (Audio CD)

Many people call Stabbing Westward a Nine Inch Nails rip off. Darkest Days proves those people wrong. Stabbing Westward is such a unique Industrial band with their own original sound. Every song on this album is packed with so much emotion and power. The instruments and electronics are amazing, and Christopher Hall's voice brings the haunting and brooding lyrics to life like no other singer could. The band has really matured since Ungod and Wither Blister Burn + Peel, and it shows through the music and lyrics on Darkest Days.

It's such a shame that Stabbing Westward isn't a very well known band, because the talent they posses is greater than a majority of the bands that are on the covers of magazines. Some people even say they're better than NIN. Those words will never come from my mouth, but I will say this. Stabbing Westward is one of the very few bands whose records I will buy. I highly recommend Darkest Days, especially to fans of Industrial, and to people who don't care to just hear screaming and swearing.