The Collegio Pittsburg's student voice since 1916
Himika Akram reporter
With the new release of the album, ‘Darkest Hour,’ many are happy that The Gibson Brothers are back with an absolutely mind-blowing album. Completed with great country music, which is exactly what people are looking for. What can you visualize when you listen to the country music? Well, the things that come to my mind are, people are relaxing sitting on the front porch of their homes, barley fields, sunflower gardens, beautiful sunny-breezy afternoon and so on. Today’s country cannot do that anymore, really. With the advent of technology, country is losing its real appeal. But that is definitely not right about this album. After a long time, got an album which sounded like country in its true form with its simplicity, clarity and the meaningful lyrics which is not trying hard to sound ‘too intellectual’ like the other genres.
There are 12 tracks in this album and although they used percussion and electric guitar in some, they still stayed genuine to their root genre be keeping banjo and mandolin prominent. With a dash of Bluegrass, Jerry Douglas definitely deserves a big applaud for that. This is the 15th album of the brother duo Eric and Leigh Gibson. Last album they released was ‘Mocking Bird’ which was released in 2018. After that, they finished half of the album ‘Darkest Hour’ by 2020 and then pandemic pushed that to a hiatus. Finally, it got released on Jan. 27, 2023.
I am not sure about the name of this album though; why they choose the name ‘Darkest Hour’ for this album, because none of the songs sounded dark to me; they are pure delight. For example, ‘I feel the same way as you’ was all about empathy. ‘One minute of you’ would definitely bring a smile on somenes face. ‘What a difference a day makes’ makes people feel optimistic and feel the joy of receiving love from the special one out of the blue.
Personally, I liked the lyrics of ‘Heart’s desire’ the most. It was very much relatable. Most of us go through that phase in our life when we want to make somebody feel our love and passion for them. It is difficult to accept why they cannot feel the same as we do; and at one point you realize you cannot change what a person feels and it is better to accept it as it is and move on with your own life. ‘Shut up and dance’ had a very much rock n’ roll vibe attached to it and personally I am not into that genre; this one I would say was not my kind of song. But if you are a fan of that rhythm, then of course it would remind you of the golden days of the Everly Brothers.
The songs ‘Dust’ and ‘What a day a difference can make’ were full-course bluegrass I would say. The title song ‘Darkest Hour’ teaches us to be grateful to the magnitude and the generosity of the almighty. We only think about him when we are going through a very hard period in our life, face the worst fear of our lives and our surroundings make us feel small about ourselves, only that is when we turn to him and we do not get disappointed. Definitely a very much meaningful one, isn’t it? The finishing song ‘This good day’ was a sign of their experiment on music. The singer duo did not cocoon themselves in a boundary and wanted to experiment and explore further.
There’s a good variety in this album and the ones who love country and bluegrass, they would for sure love this album. They have done a wonderful job writing those songs and showcasing their talent once more. They have nothing else to prove now. All they need is your appreciation of the hard work they have put in it, which is definitely worthy of giving a try.