DARKEST HOUR IN CONCERT:
For the past two decades, D.C.-based metalcore outfit Darkest Hour has been making a steady march from metal notoriety to mainstream popularity. The band has always had a strong underground following, but their last several albums have also landed on the Billboard 200 -- no small feat for a group performing grimly titled songs like "The Sadist Nation" and "The Misery We Make". In concert they live up to their dark lyrical content with aggressively energetic performances that are cathartic without ever getting mired down in doom and gloom. On tour in 2015 for their 20th anniversary, Darkest Hour will continue to do what they do best -- deliver pulse-pounding performances of melodic death metal jams like "Convalescence" and "Blessed Infection".
BACKGROUND SNAPSHOT:
Darkest Hour formed in Washington, D.C. in 1995 and released their debut EP The Misanthrope the following year. After several years of touring and a second EP titled The Prophecy Fulfilled, the band signed to M.I.A. records and released their 2000 debut full-length The Mark of the Judas. The label went under before the album received any promotion, but the band still managed to attract the attention of Victory Records, which signed Darkest Hour and issued their sophomore album So Sedate, So Secure in 2001. Following a successful stint on the 2004 Ozzfest tour, the band made their first chart appearance on the Billboard 200 with their fifth album Undoing Ruin. Their next two albums -- 2007's Deliver Us and 2009's The Eternal Return -- both peaked at No. 1 on Billboard's Heatseekers Albums charts, firmly establishing them as major players in the new wave of American metal. Since then the band has continued to electrify both on record and on tour, treating fans to searing sets of their death metal anthems.
