Darkness, The Vinyl Records
Overblown with pomp and camp, English rock band the Darkness crashed the mainstream in the early 2000s, resurrecting classic rock & roll bombast and excess with their breakthrough debut, 2003's Permission to Land. Scoring armfuls of awards and chart records, the outfit imploded just as abruptly as they seemed to arrive, breaking up after lacklustre sophomore release One Way Ticket to Hell...And Back. New bands were formed, rehab was completed, and old wounds were healed in the years that followed. The band reunited in 2011 and issued their comeback, Hot Cakes, in 2012. Subsequent 2010s efforts expanded their reliably raucous and nostalgia-indebted hard rock catalogue, capturing fans with their theatrical live shows and devotion to excess and tongue-in-cheek humour.