20 The Darkness I Believe In A Thing Called Love (2003)

A noughties glam rock classic with two huge solos

Aperfect pair of guitar-toting siblings, much like their heroes in AC/DC, Justin and Dan Hawkins have very different personalities both in person and on guitar. There are a number of songs which allow for comparisons to be drawn, and none better than breakout hit I Believe In A Thing Called Love, which saw them go head-to-head over its two main solos.

It’s younger brother Dan who first steps up to the challenge after the second chorus, running through some E major scale ideas around the bottom of the neck before heading up higher for some unison bends and bluesy ideas around the 9th fret – which would be the relative minor pentatonic three frets down from the major position found at the 12th fret. Dan is typically known as the less flamboyant persona out of the pair, and his contributions are more laid-back than Justin’s solo, which begins after the final chorus and lives in more of a bluesy world.

Justin starts his solo with a minor 7th to octave bend up at the 15th fret, also harmonised up a major 3rd before some minor pentatonic lines around the 12th fret. Then there’s a climbing run on the high E, fretting notes from the E major scale while pedalling against the open string, starting down at the 4th fret and eventually ending at the very top of his black Les Paul Standard’s neck on the 22nd fret where there’s one final whole tone bend up to the root. This kind of single-string idea can also be heard on tracks like AC/DC’S Thunderstruck and Iron Maiden’s Wasted Years, and is an effective tool for making something sound a lot more complicated than it actually is, allowing guitarists to incorporate some wide intervallic leaps against what often tends to be the key centre.

For the outro of the song, the band head back into the main riff – which is built off the first six notes of the E major scale, and then there’s one final flurry of notes from Justin using hammer-ons and pull-offs before its closing stab. Neither solo would sound quite as good without the other, which is what makes this track such an enduring celebration of their contrasting yet perfectly complementary personalities as musicians.

“I enjoy listening to Dan’s lead work because he does things that I’d never think of,” Justin once told TG. “He probably likes my stuff for the same reason. We know how to enjoy each other’s playing and not see it as a competition. It’s all about whatever’s best for the song, and it takes a while to learn that I think. Make sure the song works, otherwise nobody will listen and it might be totally pointless.”