Sound Bites: Justin Hawkins Gets a Leg Up

Most people view early '00s rawkers The Darkness as one big joke but that first album is a classic if you ask me and I still listen to it a lot. Every song on the album could've been a single, with giant hooks, great solos, and a suprisingly deft sense of humor. (It also had amazing outrageous videos.) It's follow-up, One Way Ticket to Hell (and Back), is what you'd have to call a Classic Coke Album, where bigger seemed better but, it was just bigger and not anywhere as good. But Permission to Land holds up.

I imagine at least a few of us have been wondering what Justin Hawkins has been up to since the demise of The Darkness. After a short-lived synthy solo project called British Whale, and two years of sobriety, Hawkins has unleashed his new rock group, Hot Leg, unto the world. Here's what the band's MySpace says:

Hot Leg is a brand new musical group featuring Justin 'Dave' Hawkins, former lead singer/lead guitarist/lead songwriter of The Darkness. Hot Leg are an entirely hairier beast, and they make really really brilliant rock music.

Hawkins' patented 'Truth Larynx' is the perfect foil to the 6-stringed rapier of Pete 'Liquid Guitar Hands' Rinaldi, the Axemeister General. Meanwhile Samuel SJ Stokes and Darby Todd have emulsified into one muscular unit now known only as 'The PowerZone'.

Four men with at least one machine apiece operating in pitch-perfect harmony. Who could ask for more?

Some songs, for one thing, which most of us haven't heard yet. Hot Leg have finished their debut album, due out sometime this fall, but have released a song, "Heroes," to the internet which won't be on that album. Behold:

MP3: Hot Leg - Heroes

It's definitely more boogie-rock and less Queen and while it's not as hooky as Darkness songs like "Growing on Me" or "I Believe in a Thing Called Love," the production style sounds like a real band and I look forward to hearing more from the 'Leg. Welcome back.

Meanwhile, enjoy those classic Darkness videos (including one for "Friday Night" I never knew existed) after the jump.

Growin' on Me