Artist: Demon Hunter
Album: Summer of Darkness
Label: Solid State Records
Tracks: 13
Length: 54:52
Reviewed by: Ben Bishop

If anyone can claim to be a part of the Tooth and Nail legacy, Don and Ryan Clark can. One or both of the brothers Clark have been in three different Tooth and Nail affiliated groups including Focal Point, the notoriously chaotic Training For Utopia, and their new heavy rock project, Demon Hunter. What many don’t know is that the Clarks are also partly responsible for a vast portion of the art and design aspects of the releases Tooth and Nail and its subsidiaries put out along with a lot of their website design. The brother’s Asterik Studio (asterikstudio.com) has produced album art, clothing, branding, graphics and web design for an uncanny number of high profile groups across the musical and professional spectrum. The client section on their website reads like a who’s who of current big name rock acts including Weezer, Jimmy Eat World, Van Halen, Ryan Adams, Kid Rock, along with literally dozens of others including plenty of less well known but nonetheless venerable groups such as Zao.
    
With all of the design work that they apparently do it’s hard to imagine how the brothers find time to be part of a band serious enough to record albums and tour the nation, albeit but once a summer. But that’s exactly what they and their fellow band mates have done, releasing the seasonally titled "Summer of Darkness" back in early May in time to prep their nationwide group of "hunters" for a tour with the same name.
    
This record’s art design is wonderful. The microscope is set to high seeing as how the Clarks do design for a living, and they pull through, with a classy gloss booklet which includes the full lyrics to the album and a series of crisp black and white photos depicting the band removing a coffin from a hearse and preparing to inter it on the shore of a scenic lake. The cover gets my vote for coolest of the year so far, depicting the band’s logo (a demon’s head in silhouette with a bullet hole in the forehead) in the guise of a bleached buffalo skull straight out of the old west, placed squarely on a lush bouquet of roses. Pissed off.
    
Alas, the gathering clouds of coolness so masterfully accented by the record’s art and endearingly heavy metal song titles (Not Ready To Die, My Heartstrings Come Undone, Annihilate the Corrupt, Coffin Builder) tend to dissipate under the eye of the album’s sonic tomfoolery rather than burst into the raging maelstrom of metal rain one might hope for. Yes, there is an underlying humor to Demon Hunter, one which may or may not find the Hunter’s tongues planted firmly in cheek. The mirth lies in the riffs on most of the songs including the opener "Not Ready To Die", a droning line where the guitarist employs basically just one note, buzzing like a bored worker bee and occasionally hammering-on to another fret. There’s also Don Clark’s gruff vocal which comes close to, but ultimately falls just short of, conveying the power he seems bent on transmitting. Instead he comes off as a sort of very sincere but almost cuddly pit bull, barking his way through the album.
    
Ultimately, the total feel boils down to something of a nu metal, rap-core one which unfortunately (for I have much respect for Clark&Clark&Co.) Does fails to plant itself "far from the tired camps of all nu metal cliche" as its press sheet claims. 
    
One bright spot is the album’s quirky drumming, which I dare say comes close to bringing a funky feel at times, specifically the first half of the verses on "Beheaded" where the utterly simple beat at the same time contains a special something which makes me want to bob my head and weave my torso like Jack Black listening to the "Immigrant Song". There are also moments of undeniable solid metal drumming. Less is more and the second half of those "Beheaded" verses proves this adage true as the punch line to the funky joke turns out to be a punishingly rock steady machine gun double bass line.
    
Music aside, the album's message of positivity is delivered with undeniable heart.  That and the great design seem to be evidence of the fact that the members of this widely panned, widely lauded, quasi-mysterious group are not afraid to get behind their work. Still, I'm sure they could have done better; the non-musical creative successes serve to incriminate the sonic creative failures.   The "Summer of Darkness" will have faded well before fall rolls around.