Darker My Love seems a heavy name to carry for a band, heavy and romantic at the same time, in fact it is just the title of a song of another band , the hardcore punk True Sound of Liberty (TSOL) from Long Beach, CA. DML is a five-piece band from LA whose some members (Tim Presley and Andy Granelli) were formerly with the hardcore punk band The Nerve Agents whereas Tim Presley and Rob Barbato were also part of the musicians playing on the 2007 album of the British post punk band The Fall.
Darker my Love is about to release its third LP, ‘Alive As You Are’ which is coming out July 26th in the UK, and August 17th in the USA on Dangerbird Records.
I have never heard their first albums, but ‘Spilt minute’ and ‘Dear author’, the two songs I have downloaded are very psychedelic rock, with guitar jams that reminds me the Brian Jonestown Massacre, an influence you can also hear on ‘She lives (In a time of her own)’ on their myspace page:
And this is no surprise since the two bands have a strong connection: Shortly after the departure of Granelli, their drummer, Dan Allaire of the BJM replaced him.
The melodies are filled with hooks, and that guitar on ‘Split Minute’ makes definitively The Byrds come to mind, ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ era, whereas ‘Dear Author’ follows the same line of West Coast rock inspired by the classics of the 60’s.
Tim Presley who now lives in LA, but was raised in San Francisco, brings such a psychedelic-hippie side to his music, I have a hard time to believe he ever was in a hardcore punk band.
And there is more, after reading about the band, I have realized this new album, which was recorded in the legendary Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco, gets into a new direction compared to the 2 previous albums, definitively more Grateful Dead-The Byrds-Mamas and Papas than everything they have done. That is definitively a lot of reinventions in a short amount of time.
In interviews, they are saying they went through a lot in the last few years, profound personal tragedy (Presley’s father death), and this explains why the lyrics deal with loss, pain, and rebirth throughout life in general, ‘Alive As You Are’, expressing the desire to appreciate and accept life in any state.
They are going to tour with band Of Horses in the fall, and in exchange of your email address, you can download 2 songs from their upcoming album: