Darker My Love: Self Titled

By Chris Pacifico

What started out as the side project of high school chaps Tim Presley (guitarist/vocals) of the Distillers and drummer Andy Granelli of Nerve Agents eventually began to take full form when guitarist Jared Everett and bassist Rob Barbato came into the cut as DML’s intense live performances began to raise a few eyebrows. Now with their full-length debut, which kind of sounds like one from a band called My Bloody Velvet and Mary Jonestown, L.A.’s Darker My Love flies high on wings all their own with a vibe that dishes out a phosphorescent wall of sound and shows no shyness when it’s time to churn out the reverb.

The opener, aptly titled “Opening,” drizzles like the narcotic ooze sliming out of an obscurely shaped cactus before blasting into the serenely floating melodic distortion in “What a Man’s Paris,” encompassing a fragile power-pop primer over the surrounding fuzz. Presley and Everett’s dual guitars soar like condors beneath Presley’s daunting vocals, which placidly levitates with them. DML’s best moments put the listener in the same state of mind of a leather jacket-clad, west coast, uber-boho hipster that occasionally itches his upper body and/or when the astronaut Dave goes into shock while blazing through the monolith star gate in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey on numbers like “Hello Traveler.”

With gutiar licks that ride the cosmos (“Claws and Paws”), the reverb shimmers like the album was recorded in an airtight space, which drains the core amplitude but not too much. Once the exotic harmonies slither on “Catch” and sway like a hammock in a gentle breeze, it becomes apparent that Darker My Love take a small slice of the elastic stoner jams from the likes of Kyuss and splice it with the shoe-gazer ethos of Ride, making for a potent psychedelic cocktail that will let the listener know what a long strange 39-minute trip Darker My Love has been.

JamBase | Worldwide
Go See Live Music!