Animals in the Dark was the first William Elliott Whitmore after released after his "Black trilogy" (as I've heard them referred to) of Hymns For the Hopeless, Ashes to Dust and Song of the Blackbird. Mutiny, the opening song here, immediately sets the album apart with a song that sounds like nothing on those earlier albums - comprising just (gang-)vocals and drums, it was very unexpected when I first heard it, but I loved it. Will's voice is one of my favourites and it works so well against the sparse drums. The outro of "He don't need no water / Let the motherfucker burn" was a surprise too, although tainted by the fact that most people (myself included) know the lines from shitty nu-metal songs around the turn of the century.
After that, we settle back into more familiar WEW territory, but with smaller twists - Johnny Law leans heavily into traditional country and Old Devils builds gradually in speed throughout (and is a highlight for it). The best songs are the ones that would have fit onto any of the previous albums (although that's not necessarily why they're the best songs) - Who Stole the Soul is slow and haunting, Hell or High Water is lovely in the usual Will Whitmore way, and There's Hope For You is uplifting and positive, in a way.
The album ends with A Good Day to Die, which is another lovely song but, if I'm being honest, a bit of a downer. I remember playing this album in the car in Florida as we got near to Gainesville for Fest and Sarah pressing eject somewhere towards the end of the song - she wasn't enjoying it and felt that Will had already expressed his opinion on whether or not today was a good day to die enough times already. My attempts to make her a fan of Will's work clearly didn't work.
I picked this copy up in Spillers just after it was released. 2008 was my Tuesday-record-from-Spillers year and I'd only been in once in 2009 before I went in to get this in March; it wasn't intentional, I don't think, it's just that if I wasn't forcing myself to go I tended to be lazy and not go.
Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 10
Cost: £11 new
Bought: Spillers Records, Cardiff
When: 18/03/09
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code
