Pitchfork

The torment reserved for Justin Hawkins in Hell is obvious. Should the Darkness frontman be so metaphysically unfortunate as to be cast down into the fiery depths, Lucifer would merely have to inundate Hawkins with reviews and articles declaring his band to have been nothing more than a novelty act, a joke, a piss-take. Flames and pitchfork-stabs the singer can handle, but being historically slotted next to Weird Al, Rappin' Rodney, and Ray Stevens would be the ultimate torture.

Unfortunately for Hawkins, there's still a very real possibility of him experiencing this Hell on Earth, despite the Darkness' surprising one-year slingshot from obscurity to worldwide fame. Even with millions of albums sold, the cynical legions still question the seriousness of the Darkness' intentions, often confusing the sense of humor apparent in the band's songs and videos with insincerity and winking satire. But all the discussion of falsettos and leotards misses the obvious: If the Darkness were anything less than completely honest devotees of the large-scale rock they're determined to resurrect, their music wouldn't be so successful or so unconditionally welcomed by the Pyromania tour-shirt-wearers that pack their live shows.

Thankfully, as the album title and cover image less than subtly suggest, the Darkness haven't forced themselves into an unwilling seriousness to appease the skeptics. But the sound of One Way Ticketto Hell...and Back makes some concessions towards respectability, emphasizing the most critically reputable of their triumvirate of arena-rock influences: Queen, Thin Lizzy, and Def Leppard. By recruiting producer Roy Thomas Baker, the man behind the board on classic Queen albums like Sheer Heart Attack and A Night at the Opera, the Darkness set themselves up to both expand their sound and gently remind short-memory critics that pop-metal has roots deeper than the Hair Metal Era.

Does it succeed? Well, despite a choir and pan-flute album intro, there's no "Bohemian Rhapsody" to be found here, so don't get your hopes too high. Baker helps Hawkins slather more strings and horns onto his compositions than on Permission to Land, though none of the songs fully lift off into the kind of gigantic symphonic-rock territory that Queen reached at their peak. In fact, the best use of the full orchestration comes on what might be One Way Ticket's most humble (and best) number, the simple hit-and-run pop song "Girlfriend", which adds giddy strings verging on disco to Hawkins' manic falsetto. Elsewhere Baker makes like Michael Kamen in conducting orchestral embellishments to "Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time" or "Blind Man", but nothing hits the "November Rain" epic heights the band so desperately wants to reach.

On the other hand, Baker's primary contribution may have been to enable Hawkins' quest to set the world record for most multi-tracked vocals, as One Way Ticket uses the "magnficio" effect on nearly every track. When applied sparingly, the Choir Hawkins works well-- the chorus of "Is It Just Me?" benefits from the effect's metallic sheen, while it adds bombastic punctuation to lead single "One Way Ticket". But in the wrong spots-- paging "Dinner Lady Arms" and "English Country Garden"-- 20 tracks of full-blast falsetto is something less than ear-pleasing, and certainly won't persuade anyone already frightened off by Hawkins' head voice.

The majority of the tricks, however, come off as cosmetic distractions, attempts to hide that Hawkins' songwriting hasn't grown since Permission to Land. Many of One Way Ticket's songs have the common second-album curse of being too closely related to siblings from the debut, and tracks that explore new territory come off undercooked ("Hazel Eyes") or overripe ("Bald"). The material also suffers from a comparative lack of humor; nothing here is so amusing as "Friday Night" or "Growing on Me", unless you count the no less than three follicle-obsessed tracks present, perhaps a sly reference to their pigeon-holing as hair-metal practitioners.

It may benefit the Darkness to cheat over Queen's shoulder even further on these points; after all, A Night at the Opera was famous for having everything from mini-operettas to fey pop minuets to heavy-metal thunderstorms. The band would do well to learn that they don't need to always be cranked up to 11 to convince people of their honest intentions, that they can only ride the non-dynamics of full-on excess so far before their music all starts to blur together into one big sheet of multi-tracked falsetto screech. Otherwise, the band runs the risk of becoming the joke they insist they aren't, honest intentions or no. Beezelbub has a devil set aside for thee, Justin Hawkins.