Only a few days ago, my band Poison Skies shared a stage in New Plymouth with a band that I have never heard of before called Dark Water. The next night, I heard that they have a brand new album out titled You’re Only As Addicted As You’re Willing To Be so I promptly stuck up my hand and asked if I could be the guy to write a review it.

I'm writing this review from both a live show perspective and an album perspective because they are so fresh in my mind right now, and I’m going to be fairly honest with what I write here, but bear with me as I really like these guys.

First track – Old Town Of Visoki, awesome build into their album. Takes a while to wind in, growly vocals over a trick drumline, and some nice moving basslines. Melodic, yet harsh vocals, growly gravelly, somewhat reminiscent of the late Kurt Cobain, or even more-so like Shaun Morgan from Seether. By track 10 Ashtray you also wonder if you are listening to a little bit of Jack Black.

My favourite track off the album is number 6 - Melee. The guitar riff that drives this is wicked, the feel of the verse/pre-chorus screams Lateralus by Tool, but then the Chorus screams out Soundgarden all over.

The whole album really takes me back to an era of rock that doesn’t date. Only You has bits of Sting’s famous Sending out an SOS at the beginning, but then takes a whole direction into this big power-balad chorus that does nice things to the tinnitus of my slightly damaged rock-drummer hearing. It has absolutely beautiful female backing vocals that are so different from the melody vocals, but they complement so very perfectly.

I thought I had better do a notable mention - Dark Water have a female bass player, and she rips! not like its unexpected that a female could possibly shred on bass, but she is amongst one of the best live bass players I've seen full stop. 

Now for the honest part – and I only give this opinion after having heard how massive their live sound is. The recording quality is good, but it’s not huge. I’m unsure if the album has been through a mastering studio, but I feel like one of the bigger mastering studios such as Studio 301 in Australia or Sterling Sound in New York had gotten their grubby little mits on the album, it would have given it another 20% punch in the guts in volume/body terms.  

My overall opinion – Wicked album, great musicians, insanely good bass player, great drum tracks, sweet guitars with tasteful effects, and for a 3 piece band they sound massive. I think the sound of the album doesn’t truly represent how huge the band sound live, but nevertheless, it’s a great album and well worth putting your hand in your pocket for. Wicked stuff Dark Water! 

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• 6
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