Deathcharge returns in 2024 with a blend that feels like Grave New World-era Discharge collided with sleazy Sunset Strip glam metal and Sisters of Mercy. The album art sets the tone: a post-apocalyptic highway stretching toward a neon-lit city, a visual metaphor for the album’s journey through desolation and excess.
Midnight Road departs from any remnants of hardcore, fully embracing a glam-death rock aesthetic. The album only has a few songs but they stretch beyond the five-minute mark: slower, moodier, self indulgent. While this turn might thrill the dangly-cross earring crowd, it’s a hard sell for anyone seeking the rawness of their earlier work. Personally, I found it hard to stay engaged; I liked how the previous LP went between thrashers and the slower stuff, but this one doesn’t alternate at all.