Dark Below Show Growth With “Make Believe”

I don’t usually hear a lot of vital progression with Hard Rock/Alt.Metal bands from the building blocks of the past – it’s usually just a bastardization of the form. A cookie-cutter dumbing down of the genre. I can’t say that, however, about the band Dark Below. This promising trio from the Midwest are charting a promising course in modern hard rock and are blazing a path through the twisted wreckage of modern America with musical aplomb and solid lyrics with a personal slant. They play with inspired fire with new release “Make Believe” and avoid the trite cliches that we’ve all heard too many times.

The band’s singer/guitarist Josh Campbell , has immediate command of my attention with the first line. He’s impassioned, attuned to the song’s demands, and never oversteps into self-indulgence. His ability to weave his voice around the song’s guitar passages without ever undercutting the music or his own efforts shouldn’t be missed. I love how he phrases each line and plays into the other. I love, as well, the attention he shows toward tailoring his vocals to suit the musical arrangement. It’s an invigorating show from the start and the meaning behind it makes it more enthralling for me.

The video for “Make Believe” exhibits his command of the stage. It also shows off the chemistry he shares with the other two members. They filmed the clip in the band’s hometown Rose Music Hall, a popular place where Dark Below first built a following, and I’m especially taken with their lean approach to filming this video. There’s no wasted motion. Instead, they put their focus where they should, establishing their stage presence for viewers, and it should provoke any listener into wondering just how good they’d be in a live setting.

Josh Grove is a crucial part of the band’s attack. His bass playing, of course, is a key, but it’s his vocal contributions that bring an added dimension to the band’s sonic fire. Giving Campbell a great counterpoint to work off ratchets up the intensity of an already intense track. “Make Believe” seldom backs off from listeners. It’s full bore from the start and has a gloriously exhausting presence that’s the mark of true hard rock, no matter what era.

He makes up a memorable twosome in the rhythm section with drummer Quin Koldan. They play together as if they’ve been thundering away all their musical lives. There’s no lack of muscle in what they do, but it isn’t as if they are mindlessly bashing away. Instead, an attentive listener will hear how they twist, turn, and power through the song with immense skill and more than a little style. These factors come together to give “Make Believe” a special quality that sets them apart from the field. They aren’t simply looking to deliver a paint-by-numbers hard rocker for the modern audience. They’re looking to turn people’s heads with this new single and the purpose they show suggests they will do just that.

Samuel Pratt