For nine years, Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes have been at the forefront of the new wave of British punk. Along the way we’ve gotten two live albums, a remix EP and lord knows how many shows to boot. On each album The Rattlesnakes haven’t shied away from experimenting with their music and on later albums have even warped the line between punk and pop. But on their fifth studio output, Dark Rainbow, they’ve taken away almost all traces of their punk/hardcore background as they enter their experimental era.
Only on opening song, ‘Honey’, do we feel any semblance to what we have known through the past four albums, and while the band haven’t been neglectful of ballads in the past with ‘I Hate You’ & ‘Neon Rust’ showing just two tracks of the powerful and slower side of the band. But as soon as you pass ‘Honey’, that’s where the high–octane energy that The Rattlesnakes are known for evaporates. It’s not a recent occurrence of that band writing like this, as some of the album was written before the pandemic even crossed our minds, and it’s just a show of how much the writing style has changed for both Frank Carter & Dean Richardson.
“Love or detest the album, you can’t argue that Carter and Richardson have created an ever evolving band”
Since End Of Suffering was released many fans of The Rattlesnakes have labelled Carter & Richardson ‘sell outs’ & ‘pop stars’ with their shift of direction. Dark Rainbow now fully shows their shift into lighter territory, both lyrically & musically. Main Single ‘Man Of The Hour’ was both praised and shunned by older and newer fans alike. While the songs are lighter and with more of a synth-bass feel to them, they’re catchy and the hooks are outstanding. You can feel the creativity oozing from songs like ‘American Spirit’, which encapsulates the 80’s New Jack Swing movement, to the indie rock anthem ‘Superstar’. There are duds however, the main culprit ‘Can I Take You Home’ is just a poorly written soppy ode to 80’s pop and the dire need to have a thousand different love songs.
Never on one album have The Rattlesnakes been more defined and ambitious than Dark Rainbow, creating a crossroads of ‘artists change and evolve, along with their music’ and ‘no punk, no Rattlesnakes’. Love or detest the album, you can’t argue that Carter & Richardson have created an ever evolving band that’s always peered into other genres and that Dark Rainbow has truly explored the musical cosmos. It creates a juxtaposition however, as Dark Rainbow has slowed their momentum down from non-stop fury to just another punk-meets-pop band, which feels like an attempt to cash in, making Dark Rainbow one of the most confusing albums to represent the band.
Lyrically it’s emotionally jarring and combined with Carter’s vocals hitting areas he’s not hit since previous band Pure Love it creates uneasy listening in some places as the bass is fuzzy and abrasive making it difficult to focus on anything else. But when you get past the few small production issues the album has, it becomes clear that Dark Rainbow is a band evolving with themselves and creating music for themselves. While for older Rattlesnakes it may be the end of the road for them, the newer Rattlesnakes will absorb the album and continue the diversity of fans leaking from genre to genre that makes The Rattlesnakes one of the UK’s biggest growing bands.