Dark New Day formed in 2004 by members of Virgos Merlot, DoubleDrive, Sevendust, Stereomud and Skrape. ‘Hail Mary’ has a quite strange story; the material was written back in 2007 but due to conflicts with Warner and finally a broken contract with the famous recording company, the record remained unreleased for years. It only came out digitally via iTunes in 2011.
Upon hearing the album, it wasn’t worth all the trouble. Dark New Day plays commercial hard rock for the mainstream, without any edge to the guitars or memorable melodies except a few exceptions. Besides the band’s soft and sterilized playing (after all, two members were in Evanescence for a while), I have to point out the Dark New Day’s obvious love for Muse. The use of keyboards and the style of singing to some of the tracks are just copied from the famous British group. Especially ‘Simple’ could be in the ‘Black Holes and Revelations’ album by Muse, which was breaking through at the same time when the American band composed the songs for ‘Hail Mary’. The resemblance is disturbingly stunning and most importantly Brett Hestla’s voice doesn’t even compare to the range of Matt Bellamy.
