Written By Kevin McSweeney
Speed Days is the independently-released debut album by Finland’s Dart, a band who caught my eye because they share a name with an Irish commuter rail service that I have availed of on numerous occasions. In Ireland, DART stands for Dublin Area Rapid Transit, and this is an appropriate comparison, because rapid is exactly the word to describe the music of Dart, though the Oulu-based band operate at speeds more akin to the Japanese Shinkansen than anything you’d find on the Emerald Isle. The word speed is in the title of the album for good reason.
They define their sound as “thrash ‘n’ roll/punk” – a blend that makes them strongly reminiscent, to my ears at least, of classic British hardcore punk bands such as Discharge or The Exploited, particularly in the Beat the Bastards era of the latter, when double-kick drumming and guitar solos gave their punk a distinct thrash metal edge.
First Bite is brief even by the standards of this album. It’s essentially an intro to the title track, building anticipation with 1960’s-style organ, lead guitar histrionics and crash cymbal crescendos, and before we know it, we’re straight into Speed Days, which is sixty seconds of screaming, shredding, splenetic fury. Nothing to Lose takes the speed down, but only by a fraction of a notch. It’s longer than its predecessor, but not by much, at two minutes and five seconds in duration. There’s a bluesy rock ‘n’ roll element to this track, hence thrash ‘n’ roll as opposed to just thrash, I suppose. A comparison here could be made with Motörhead, though it’s Motörhead on steroids instead of Lemmy’s customary JD and Coke.
Acid Dart is more of the same, though there is some nice tremolo picking half way through, leading to a shimmering solo. This band really doesn’t mess around! For these guys, going over two minutes is pushing it and anything even approaching three minutes in duration constitutes inexcusable self indulgence. Blood is one of the longer songs, at a relatively colossal 2 minutes and 38 seconds. It’s pure 1980s Bay Area thrash, except the chorus bears a gem of a guitar melody that wouldn’t be out of place in power metal.
Sick Game sees the re-emergence of the 60’s-style organ – is it a Hammond B-3? – which makes it sound as if The Crazy World of Arthur Brown had recorded their classic hit Firewith a black metal vocalist after consuming several litres each of Red Bull. Not that they had Red Bull in the 60’s. Or indeed black metal vocalists. It switches to 6/8 time for a few bars and the whole thing turns decidedly trippy and psychedelic before it’s back to the thrash and a rip-roaring guitar solo to take us home. It’s the strongest track on the album in my opinion.
The next song on the album, coincidentally enough, is called Fire, and it has absolutely nothing to do with The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. The brief drum intro momentarily made me think they were launching into a cover of Judas Priest’s Painkiller. What we get instead is some proper black metal-style tremolo picking and some sombre atmospherics in the verse and chorus, which is hard to pull off at this sort of blistering pace.
Highway Thunder is another Motörhead-like moment. I could certainly imagine Lemmy barking this one out. They actually tease us with a false ending in this song, but it’s straight back to that chugging riff and then full speed ahead into a delectable guitar solo. I’m also going to give a shout out to the snare sound here. It’s tuned tightly, like a jazz drummer’s snare, with pleasing overtones. It might even be a piccolo snare, and I bet it’d make you wince at full live volume, especially in a small venue. It’s reminiscent of John Stanier’s snare sound on Helmet’s albums in the 1990s, such as Meantime and Betty, which gives me warm and fuzzy feelings of nostalgia. I digress. The screaming is at its most demented on this track, particularly towards the end, and that leads us via four crotchets on the hi-hat into the final song on the album.
Thin Ice starts off in Iron Maiden fashion with its harmonised guitar melody, which shortly gives way to frenzied soloing and sinister laughter. We’re soon speeding away again, but in more melodic fashion this time. The tempo halves in the middle, and the organ sound makes one final appearance over a Steve Harris-style galloping rhythm. One last sumptuous solo brings us into the big ending…
…and then it’s all over, after just 19 minutes and 16 seconds. That’s the whole album, not the final track, I hasten to add. There are prog bands with songs that are longer than that, but who cares? It’s great to have an album you can get through on a mid-morning coffee break, just as long as your boss doesn’t mind you being on the verge of smashing your desk when you return. It leaves a sense of joyous, sweat-drenched bemusement in its wake, or a speedy daze, if that’s not too cringe-inducing a way to put it. This album has the kind of intensity that would be greatly diminished, were it to be extended over a long period, like a session on the battle ropes in the gym. Many people listen to music while working out, and the right tunes can make a gruelling training session much easier to endure. Some bands create serene, stately passages of music that are the ideal accompaniment to a lengthy session on the treadmill or bike. Others make mid-paced muscular metal, perfect for helping you get that PR on the bench press or deadlift. This is the musical equivalent of High Intensity Interval Training: brief, furious bursts of all-out energy that are simply too extreme to endure for long, but are every bit as effective as their more time-consuming counterparts.
Overall, It’s a thoroughly enjoyable debut album, and I humbly ask for more of the same in the not-too-distant future. It’s a solid start for Dart!
I rate this album 4 and a half out of 5 devil horns
Speed Days Tracklisting
1. First Bite (0:34)
2. Speed Days (1:00)
3. Nothing to Lose (2:05)
4. Acid Dart (1:27)
5. Burnin’ (1:51)
6. Blood (2:38)
7. Sick Game (2:00)
8. Fire (2:33)
9. Highway Thunder (2:39)
10. Thin Ice (2:29)
Dart lineup:
Vocals – Emppu
Rhythm Guitar, Backing Vocals – Joki
Lead Guitar, Organ – Tuoppa
Bass – Hiski
Drums – Samppa
Speed Days is available to stream on Deezer, Spotify, and YouTube Music.
DART ONLINE: