At this point, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I am Rampage’s certified metalcore boomer. It is a good thing that the genre has grown and evolved over the last few decades, but it has left behind a lot of the things I loved it for in the first place and developed into something that is not for me. That’s okay, the spiritual youngsters can have Bad Omens. I get to have a delightful time with the massively underrated cult heroes, Darkest Hour.

Suffer Divine opens with an intro track. I am normally not a fan of intro tracks, but All Cruelty Springs From Weakness immediately hitting my ears with a pained scream, fading into back-masked vocals is fantastic. It’s not boring and I can’t imagine the start of the record without it, especially when it immediately swings into Gods of Decay. From here, the stall is set. We’re doing the classic metalcore thing of using Gothenburg inspired riffing with a sprinkle hardcore for flavour. It’s a formula that Darkest Hour have followed for over two decades now and they are incredibly proficient at it.

There are two elements that set Suffer Divine out as unique in the catalogue. No Conquered Hearts shows off the first of these. The chorus is much more anthemic than I’d usually associate with Darkest Hour. There are no clean vocals in sight, but the guitar work and more melodic approach to screaming makes this feel like a play for bigger rooms. I can see myself singing along to this at a gig with no problem. It feels so triumphant.

Now we’re going to take a bit of a digression. I think that all the best albums have some consideration of track sequencing in how they’re constructed. This does not have to be a Pink Floyd style unbroken stream of music. I always point to Rancid’s …And Out Come The Wolves as a prime example. Throughout the album no two tracks follow each other with the same vibe, fast punky tracks transition into mid-pace stompers, into ska tracks. “But Matty,” I hallucinate you meekly whining at your phone screen, “in the Year of Our Lord big two kay twenty six, everyone just puts their favourite tracks into playlists on streaming services so sequencing doesn’t matter any more.” In that case why bother releasing an album? If an album isn’t meant to be a cohesive piece of art, why not just release disparate singles? Sequencing still matters to psychopaths like me who only have playlists under sufferance for when their family is in the car with them, and they think listening to the whole of The Codex Necro in order would be a little much for their parents.

So, back to Suffer Divine – No Conquered Hearts fades out of a hanging guitar lead. The ideal way to sequence an album would be to immediately swing into a song that goes incredibly hard straight away. The contrast would enhance the impact nicely. Darkest Hour don’t do this. They don’t even meaningfully subvert this trope to catch you off guard. Salvation fades in slowly before a melodic guitar lick hits the ear, and the song as a whole sits in that more anthemic terrain. It’s a confusing decision.

Thankfully though, Salvation is actually a really good song outside of this. It’s probably the best of the more melodic tracks on the record, and also shows off one of the other distinguishing features of the record nicely. The guitar leads on this record as fantastic. The main lick on this one is really fun, keeping the instrumental interesting even if it’s a little less riff based when this lead line is played. The guitar harmonies that emerge out of the solo are also great, some might even care to describe them as Maiden-esque if you’re that way inclined.

Salvation fades out on some nice classical guitars before the title track storms in. This is what makes the earlier sequencing bungle so frustrating, because there are several tracks that could easily slot in and this is a perfect example of how to do this. Overall all this track is just non-stop rage, with a Slayer inspired solo and a closing beat down that is already making me feel the spin kicks I’m going to receive to the head when they drop this live.

From here, the album has mostly settled into its groove. With a band who’ve been around for this long, there’s not a lot to surprise a listener, but I’ll touch on some highlights. Warrior has a great chant along chorus and chugg-tastic breakdown. Vile Angel has some excellent, twisted guitar melodies. The Unforgiving Hand builds an emotive guitar solo over its acoustic intro, patiently building for over two minutes before the vocals finally come in to carry the song home. This is another point where I’d sequence things slightly differently but I’ll get to the track I think would best follow this up shortly. What does follow it though, is Tribalist, which is probably my favourite chorus of the record.

The next track, Everyday Horrors is what should have followed The Unforgiving Hand. This is just a cross-over thrash rager buried at the end of a Darkest Hour record. You stick this track on a Power Trip album and everyone would be head over heels. The slower section with the drummer going mental on the toms is perfect. The ride cymbal under the solo. The chants of “Lies! Lies! Lies!”. It’s perfect.

A Story of Redemption closes us out on another big, anthemic song. The guitars soar as the vocals tease us about how “everybody loves a story of redemption”. It’s enough to cement in my mind that if we can get Darkest Hour on a tour supporting Parkway Drive off the back of this record, they could win over so many fans of Parkway’s Ire sound.

Ultimately Suffer Divine is a solid album. If you love Darkest Hour like I do, there’s plenty here for you to enjoy. It does suffer though from being a solid, but fairly unsurprising version of what this band have always done. I’m very happy that Darkest Hour are still putting out good records and I’ll be waiting in anticipation for the next one.