The Darkness Gets Censored Over ‘Easter Is Cancelled’ Artwork, Release Title Track

The Darkness are no strangers to controversy and it appears that the album art for their Easter Is Cancelled album has received a bit of backlash. The cover features the members of the band as punishers unleashing their wrath while singer Justin Hawkins is nailed to the cross.

As you might expect, the artwork has been banned by certain platforms, but the group has come up with a humorously pixelated fix, and fans get a taste of both covers in their video for the Easter Is Cancelled title track (seen below).

The song is a guitar-heavy rocker showing the band's range as musicians. Drummer Rufus "Tiger" Taylor says, "That was the last song we wrote for the album. We needed a fast one. So Dan and I were given that challenge. We had a day of jamming. It was one of those things where we just sat down and bang – the first thing we played became the first four bars of the finished song.”

Vocalist Justin Hawkins adds, “Rufus and Dan [Hawkins] came up with this AC/DC boogie thing, except with all these weird, progressive time changes. Lyrically, it’s one of the multiverse ones. You can’t be angry about a multiverse. It makes everything more manageable. You have to be comforted by the fact that there’s a reality somewhere it isn’t all shit. Conversely, when everything is going right, there’s a universe where it isn’t, and you should be grateful.”

Easter Is Cancelled has been described as "a mini rock opera examining the role of the musician in the barbarous culture of the world today." The album is due Oct. 4 via Cooking Vinyl and you can get your pre-orders in right here.

The Darkness intend to embrace the album's conceptual ties by playing it in full on their upcoming tour, also adding in their greatest hits for performances as well. The group has a 19-date U.K. trek starting in November to finish out the year and tickets can be found here.

The Darkness, "Easter Is Cancelled"

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