"Darkest" Album Ever?...

[IsaacW]

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Lateralus by Tool.

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Actually, I think it's the opposite.

Reflection, for instance, is about hopefulness for the species as a whole, if only we can put aside our egos.

Ticks and Leeches is about anger, and letting those who bargain for ruin just get, well...ruined.

The Grudge is about letting go of pointless animosity.

Schism is about opening the avenues of communication.

Parabol/Parabola is about having some spiritual connection to the world.

The Patient is about, uh, ok--it's a little dark.

Lateralus is about pushing the limits of one's experience.

Triad is a freakin great instrumental.

I know I did them out of order, but I was just winging it.

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To me, Lateralus is about the sorry state of our species, not hopefulness. I'm a pretty cynical bastard, though, and don't hold out much hope for us "put[ting] aside our egos," to stop "bargain[ing] for ruin," or "[re-]opening the avenues of communication."

On the Parabol/Parabola spiritual connection theme, you can reorder the songs on Lateralus to generate something that resembles a single work, a "Holy Gift" as it were. There's a post about it here and, though the guy kinda goes off the deep end about it, the reordering is very powerful, especially if you remove the silence between tracks and match the ending beats of certain songs with the starting beats of the following songs.

[astroglide]

...and the whole album is the band masturbating while being recorded

[obithrawn]

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Should we say, right off the bat, that death metal doesn't count?

That's infinite darkness there, brah...

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Typical death metal is more about Satanism for show, few artists really believe in or practice any of that. Larry Lalonde (who was in Possesssed when they recorded 7 churches) has said a few times he thinks anyone who is actually into that stuff is pretty stupid. Even bands with fairly dark-sounding names (Death, Morbid Angel) focus more on philosophy lyrically and idealogically.

The guys who wanted to be really evil went into black metal, which is where my choice is.

Darkthrone's Transylvanian Hunger. Very atmospheric and dark.

[KJS]

Too bad those black metal guys make music that is supposed to be evil but sounds like it was made by little girls. How evil is keyboards and falsetto singing?

I did see Behemoth the other night. They opened for Suffocation. They say they are black metal, but I don't hear it much in their tunes. They were good. That rapid, repetitive drumming ruins a lot of their songs though. Hello, syncopation?

Death to wussy metal.

KJS

[Soul Daddy]

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something from Morrissey seems like it should make this list.

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I'm thinking an album entitled "Viva Hate" may qualify.

[wayabvpar]

Operation Mindcrime- Queensryche
Controlled by Hatred/Feel Like Sh*t/Deja vu- Suicidal Tendencies

[astroglide]

viva hate isn't that dark. and i don't think any smiths/morrissey albums would crack the charts here.

[fryKing]

"Wither Blister Burn + Peel" by Stabbing Westward is about as depressing as it gets, lyrically at least.

[Bubbagump]

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I'd have to go with The Wall..... The Wall is a steady descent into madness, and you don't really get the feeling that the protagonist is enjoying it at all along the way.

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I'm kind of surprised to hear somebody suggest the 'The Wall'. If I were going to nominate a Pink Floyd album for this, I would have gone with 'The Final Cut'. It is infinately more dark and depressing IMO.

[Bubbagump]

I'm going to go with Black Sabbath - 'Born Again'. There is just something about that record that sends chills down my spine whenever I listen to it.