DARK ANGEL Darkness Descends LP Vinyl 1986 Brazil Thrash sodom heavy metal

$

78

ARTIST: Dark Angel TITLE: Darkness Descends
LABEL: Enigma (16) – EG007
RECORD GRADING: VG SLEEVE GRADING: VG (Writing on cover; Original Brazilian owner "laminated" the cover in a way that is nice... He didn't use a heat method that CONNECTED the plastic laminate to the front of the cover, but just the INSIDE. So if you wanted to remove it, you could. I personally would not)
NOTES: Official 1987 Brazilian import. Original! Includes insert w/ spotting.  ____
All records ship both domestically (USPS Media Mail) and Internationally (USPS), and will be packed/protected like a pro with experience. 

Dark Angel – Darkness Descends

Released in November 1986, "Darkness Descends" is a relentless, epoch-defining monument of extreme thrash metal that pushed the genre to the absolute limits of speed and aggression. While 1986 is often celebrated for the "Big Four" masterpieces, this sophomore effort from Los Angeles-based Dark Angel—comprising vocalist Don Doty, guitarists Jim Durkin and Eric Meyer, bassist Rob Yahn, and the legendary Gene Hoglan—stands as the definitive "underground" counterpart to Slayer’s Reign in Blood. Recorded at Music Grinder and Mad Dog Studios with producer Randy Burns (fresh off his work on Megadeth's Peace Sells), the album stripped away the "beer-and-leather" aesthetics of their debut, We Have Arrived, in favor of a cold, apocalyptic, and rhythmically complex assault. It is often cited as a crucial bridge between thrash and the nascent death metal movement, influencing everyone from Cannibal Corpse to Deicide.

The album’s primary engine is the debut of Gene Hoglan, who earned the nickname "The Human Drum Machine" for his unprecedented double-bass speed and surgical precision. Hoglan’s arrival transformed the band's songwriting; his contribution of dense, multi-layered lyrics and inhumanly fast 250+ BPM tempos redefined what was physically possible on a drum kit. The title track, "Darkness Descends," opens with a chaotic snare roll that famously inspired the drum pattern in Metallica’s "One" and dives into a lyrical world inspired by the "Dark Judges" from the Judge Dredd comics. Other tracks like "The Burning of Sodom" and "Perish in Flames" are exercise in "total thrashing mania," characterized by Jim Durkin’s razor-wire riffs and Don Doty’s frantic, high-pitched delivery that sounds like a man on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

Beyond the sheer velocity, the album showcased a sophisticated, almost progressive approach to extreme metal. The eight-minute epic "Black Prophecies"—dealing with the visions of Nostradamus—features shifting time signatures and a crushing mid-tempo groove that foreshadowed the band’s later technical evolution on Time Does Not Heal. The iconic cover art, featuring a silhouetted graveyard beneath a blood-red sky, perfectly encapsulates the record’s grim, nihilistic tone. Darkness Descends remains a "litmus test" for metal fans; it is a claustrophobic, exhausting, and ultimately transcendent listening experience that proves why Dark Angel are forever enshrined as the "L.A. Caffeine Machine."

The 1986 "Unholy Trinity" of Aggression

In the peak year of thrash, these three albums were often grouped together as the most violent and uncompromising records of the era.

Album Band Region Defining Characteristic Darkness Descends Dark Angel USA (L.A.) Rhythmic density and "The Human Drum Machine." Reign in Blood Slayer USA (L.A.) Surgical brevity and "perfect" production. Pleasure to Kill Kreator Germany Raw, primitive chaos and proto-death vocals.

50 Similar Things (Extreme Thrash, Death Metal Roots & Speed Freaks)

If the sonic battering ram of Darkness Descends is your baseline, these 50 entries capture that same "red-line" intensity and historical weight.

Category Items 1–25 Items 26–50 The Speed Kings 1. Slayer – Hell Awaits 26. Razor – Violent Restitution 2. Morbid Saint – Spectrum of Death 27. Sacrifice – Forward to Termination 3. Demolition Hammer – Epidemic of Violence 28. Gammacide – Victims of Science 4. Sodom – Persecution Mania 29. Fastkill – Nuclear Thrashing Holocaust 5. Kreator – Terrible Certainty 30. Hypnosia – Extreme Hatred Technical Thrash Grails 6. Coroner – Punishment for Decadence 31. Sabbat (UK) – History of a Time to Come 7. Sadus – Chemical Exposure 32. Watchtower – Energetic Disassembly 8. Vio-Lence – Eternal Nightmare 33. Forbidden – Forbidden Evil 9. Toxik – World Circus 34. Realm – Endless War 10. Destruction – Release from Agony 35. Aspid – Extravasation Early Death Metal Links 11. Possessed – Seven Churches 36. Death – Scream Bloody Gore 12. Necrovore – Divus de Mortuus 37. Morbid Angel – Altars of Madness 13. Sepultura – Schizophrenia 38. Sarcófago – I.N.R.I. 14. Massacra – Final Holocaust 39. Merciless – The Awakening 15. Pestilence – Malleus Maleficarum 40. Messiah – Hymn to Abramelin L.A. & Bay Area Classics 16. Exodus – Bonded by Blood 41. Testament – The Legacy 17. Rigor Mortis – S/T (Texas/L.A. crossover) 42. EvilDead – Annihilation of Civilization 18. Hirax – Raging Violence 43. Holy Terror – Mind Wars 19. Agent Steel – Unstoppable Force 44. Viking – Do or Die 20. Dark Angel – Leave Scars 45. Dark Angel – Time Does Not Heal Cult Underground Icons 21. Blood Feast – Kill for Pleasure 46. Num Skull – Ritually Abused 22. Devastation – Idolatry 47. Incubus – Serpent Temptation 23. Whiplash – Power and Pain 48. Onslaught – The Force 24. Infernal Majesty – None Shall Defy 49. Hobbs' Angel of Death – S/T 25. Slaughter – Strappado 50. Solstice – The Sentencing