Darlings

"“I saw Brian crowd-surfing on some people/But there was no band at all.” That’s Peter Rynsky, singer of Darlings, at the outset of “Eviction Party,” a splash of lo-fi elegance that, like most Darlings songs, squeezes meaning from the inconsequential. On its winning debut album “Yeah I Know” (Famous Class), this young New York band — Mr. Rynsky, the guitarist Joe Tirabassi, the keyboardist Maura Lynch and the drummer Matt Solomon — plays casually rendered garage-pop that’s masking an arched eyebrow: they’re all working harder than they appear to be. Among the best here is “Friends Forever,” a dry love letter that’s part surf-rock, part musical theater. “I can’t wait to see your skinny legs again,” Mr. Rynsky sings, “because we’re more than friends/and I need you.” During the unprintable chorus, the affair moves from the park to a literal dark room to a metaphorical one. “Don’t make me get down on my knees,” Mr. Rynsky sings, though it sounds like he wouldn’t mind."--By JON CARAMANICA - The New York Times

Possibly the least well-known band on this year’s list, Darlings is a Brooklyn-based four-piece that sounds pretty much exactly how you always wanted your high school garage band to sound. They’re surprisingly impressive on a technical level, with all sorts of meandering guitar melodies and interesting interplay between instruments. The recording is far from polished, but it’s got this perfect level of fidelity that keeps things clear enough but also seems to say, “We could have made this sound better, but we didn’t feel like it, you fucking square.” They call to mind a sloppier Teenage Fanclub or Sloan at times, with whimsical melodies that feel completely timeless. Then, out of nowhere, they turn into a loud, screamy rock band, like early Replacements or the Jason Lowenstein contributions to Sebadoh, or maybe even… Nirvana? Basically, they’ve held onto the idea that this whole music thing was always supposed to be fun because you get to bang on shit really, really hard — it just so happens they bring an awful lot of other stuff to the table as well.
- The L Magazine

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Dusted Reviews

Artist: Darlings

Album: Yeah I Know

Label: Famous Class

Review date: Sep. 16, 2009


Darlings - "If This is Love" (Yeah I Know)

Yeah I Know, the debut recording from NYC’s garage pop Darlings, comes packaged with an elaborate book of black and white photographs. Blown up to pixel-revealing size, the photos evoke childhood memories of beehive hairdos, snowsuits and one surprising gay kiss – but they can’t be the band members’ memories. Born long past the age of grey-tone snapshots, their first steps, Christmas mornings and prom costumes would have been recorded with video cameras.

What does it mean when a bunch of hip post-collegiate New Yorkers appropriate their parents’ memories? Maybe that the changes are only superficial, that really being 20-something is still a matter of making out on couches and watching TV, that Rubber Soul and Sticky Fingers still dominate the battle for garage pop influence, that youthful energies can still be channeled into living room bacchanals where beefy young men crowd-surf and pogo wrecklessly and girls stick to the safe corners away from the mayhem. It means that, as an album, Yeah I Know feels both familiar and oddly fresh. It’s an old car running on high-test gas. It’s the ephemera high energy of new adulthood funneled through well-travelled pop channels. And, not so remarkably, that energy carries the day. Whether you grew up on the Stones, the Replacements, Pavement or the Thermals, its sloppy exuberance will resonate like an old photo of a putatively simpler time.

In one way, Yeah I Know is rooted in the now, songs about intern and entry-level poverty (“Eviction Party”) jittering on post-financial meltdown nerves, getting drunk on cheap beer and winding up out the window with a chandelier wrapped around the neck. The sweetness of melodic guitars and swaddling comfort of fuzz sweetens the uncertainty, the pounding one-two drums (downbeats on the snare, ups on the bass drums) pushing the angst ahead. Songs are both bashed out and bashful, the singer coyly spelling “G-I-R-L-I-L-O-V-E” in “Gorilla,” instead of saying it, and observing that “it takes a lot of nerve to dance.” Innocents work at cynicism here, drawling “Yeah I know” with a world-weary sarcasm, yet retaining a fresh-faced enthusiasm in the bright melodies and thickets of strummed guitars. “I’ve got a mouth that’s full of fists,” they sing, triumphantly in the title track, and whether that means they are chewing their own knuckles in uncertainty or getting clocked in the mouth by someone else, there’s a buoyancy in the song that rises above the image.

The whole album takes less than half an hour, all fizz and buzz and puppyish pop vulnerability. It’s a sweet little ride, over too soon, but one you don’t remember all that well in its particulars. It may borrow a little here and there from the recent and not-so-recent past, but let’s face it, this kind of music can only be made by the very young. If you’re 19, it will sound like last night’s party. If you’re 25, 35, even 45, it will remind you that your past is still going on, happening somewhere in a basement or rec room to other people in slightly different clothes. Youth is always draining away at the bottom, always being replenished on top, and if Darlings have a lock on it this year, bless them for reminding us what it sounds like."--By Jennifer Kelly - Dusted Magazine

DARLINGS

Hometown: New York, NY
Sounds like: Straightforward, earnest garage pop -- with occasional detours into noisy, Sonic Youth-style mishmash.
Recommended if you like: The Strokes, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart
You should know: These four first met while coasting through college at NYC institutions of higher learning. - Spin.com

Here’s a brand spanking new video from Brooklyn’s Darlings, directed by Daniel Patrick Carbone. We went to college with all of them in a different life. They majored in keeping it cool and minored in slam poetry, and they haven’t cut their hair since graduation! The vid appears to be an exploration into the world of garage rock—band members jam hard, band members get tired or something, band members keel over and then the dude shooting the video has to sub in for the drummer. Also just realized that the best garage rock should feel kind of like spelunking in your parents’ basement. - TheFader.com

You may have noticed 2 songs in this month’s mix from a band called Darlings. This was one of those rare cases where I had, like, 5 songs from a band and wanted to put them all in the mix, but had to limit myself. Seriously, if you like the 2 tracks in the mix, go to theirspace and check out the other songs, “Eviction Party,” “Yeah I Know,” and the stomper, “If This Is Love.” The L Magazine threw out comparisons to Teenage Fanclub, the Replacements, and Sebadoh, but I don’t hear it, to be honest. All I hear are pure, consummate pop songs, plain and simple– and ain’t nothing wrong with that. - The Catbirdseat / http://www.catbirdseat.org/archives/1256.php

Brooklyn's Darlings are set to release their wonderfully slouchy debut LP, Yeah I Know, on August 11th through Famous Class, source of this teenage lovesick non-anthem. Bee tee dubs, Yeah I Know could be the most apathetically awesome album title ever, a perfect summation of their lowly but no less awesome tomfoolery.

Sounds like: Cause Co-Motion, Vivian Girls, Alex & The Horribles - RDRDLBL.COM / http://rcrdlbl.com/2009/07/14/download_darlings_teenage_girl

Darlings
As we write this, one or more members of Darlings are currently watching MTV's Teen Cribs (again, Twitter), but in the past 12 months, their slouchy, hooky garage rock has found its way all over the city. First there was praise for their debut album, Yeah I Know, on every conceivable local music blog this summer, then the mothership of press -- The New York Times -- got on board with a few nice things to say. Next came Urban Outfitters, who included their song "Eviction Party" in an in-store store playlist/blog mix along the likes of Girls and The xx. Things got weirder when Vanity Fair used "Teenage Girl" to soundtrack a behind-the-scenes photo shoot teaser for their Hollywood issue. While the year concluded with Yeah I Know on more than a few "best of" lists (The L's included), Darlings kicked off 2010 with their first trip to SXSW where they played a load of shows at places like thrift stores and tattoo shops. Their band name is getting easier to Google, too. To keep it going, they'll be opening for the Smith Westerns at Market Hotel on April 3 and playing Brooklyn Bowl on the 15th, where they'll share the stage with '09 honorable mention, Sisters. - The L Magazine