Alive As You Are

As with the psychedelic movement’s drift away from density among many of its original hitmakers, so with its followers. The back-to-the-country appeal by 1969 or 1970 lured the Grateful Dead and the Byrds away from West Coast urban pressures towards gentler pastures. They stripped down their lysergic or cerebral textures and let the fresh air in.

For a band whose allegiances lie with the post-shoegaze/noise scene yet contain members who've played with the disparate likes of The Distillers and The Fall amongst others, it would take a braver man than I to predict exactly whereabouts Los Angeles five-piece Darker My Love are headed next. Having ditched several drummers, along with their previous sound - one-time Brian Jonestown associate Dan Allaire currently resides behind the kit - the 2010 model of Darker My Love is all but a reminder in name-only of the one that set pulses racing in 2008 on second album 2.

When your band's trajectory starts to resemble that of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, that's likely not a good thing-- hell, at this point, I'm sure the members of BRMC would even agree. Whether intentionally or unwittingly, though, Darker My Love are taking plenty of cues from them. Just as BRMC put out a decent debut (2001's B.R.M.C.) and a samey, not-so-decent follow-up (2003's Take Them On, On Your Own), Darker My Love's 2006 self-titled debut was a just-okay neo-shoegaze affair, while 2008's holy-shit-is-that-really-the-title 2 was a tepid sophomore effort that felt monochrome and dulled-over.