At the turn of our innocent century, who would've guessed that 2025 would bring an eighth studio album from the Darkness? The infectious 2003 novelty hit "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" had the sound of a one-hit wonder even back then, and for many, the band's spandex histrionics were an anachronism too far (footnotes of the distant future will perhaps memorialize them as the band behind the song Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce sang along to at the 2024 US Open). That they would ultimately soldier on, delivering sometimes spotty but always enjoyable albums every few years, is one of the more blessed threads of our timeline.Dreams on Toast sits comfortably alongside these latter-day efforts; although increasingly, it's the band's admittedly amusing combination of swaggering rock pageantry and distinctly British knowingness — think Monty Python and a heavy pour of Jack Daniels — that does most of the heavy lifting here. While the songs themselves are generally of the reliable calibre we've come to expect, they're all over the place stylistically to an almost distracting degree, with the band adding traditional country, pop-punk and even a stab at (gulp) rapping to their trademark brand of '70s glam rock.Then again, the album opens almost too straightforwardly, with the textbook AC/DC riff of previously released single "Rock and Roll Party Cowboy," a drôle but ultimately inert statement of intent that basically just lists a bunch of clichéd rock imagery over a heavy riff, KMFDM style. Yes, the details are wryly observed and entertainingly delivered, but it signals a worrying lack of new ideas — or the diving board of a desperate jump into a bunch of ill-advised ones. Your standard late-career artistic conundrum, basically.The album that follows is more gleeful cannonball than poised high dive, but if you're still sitting in the front row for the Darkness in 2025, you're likely used to getting splashed. There's no ignoring the fact that nothing here comes close to starry-eyed, transcendent cuts like "Last of Our Kin" or "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us" (from 2012's underrated Hot Cakes), or the sheer exuberance of Permission to Land. Instead, we get country-tinged odes to passing gas ("Beans in rich tomato sauce / Familiar on the tin"), and, as though the band are auditioning for Warped Tour in 2006, the angsty pop-punk stylings of "The Battle for Gadget Land." It's here that vocalist Justin Hawkins debuts his hip-hop flow, and while it's obviously delivered with his usual endearing silliness ("electric lutes" anyone?), it's safe to say no one asked for this.Less guiltily enjoyed is the straight-ahead rock of "I Hate Myself," with its bluesy saxophones sitting perfectly in the mix, or the lush, solo-heavy extravagance of the Queen-worshipping "The Longest Kiss." There's also "Walking Through Fire," a late-album banger that's anthemic in all the best ways of old. However, even this latter gem manages to come off as an afterthought, buried before closer "Weekend in Rome," an earnest, spoken-word Italian travelogue full of sweeping cinematic orchestration that is mostly played straight.Yet this somewhat frustrating curio is, like everything else on the album, impeccably arranged, full of tasteful flourishes, and bursting with the band's usual charm and authenticity — making Dreams on Toast difficult to dislike. The knowing wink may feel a bit strained as the crow's feet deepen, but it will coax your face into a smile more often than not.
Wavelength
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