Album Review : Darker My Love - Alive As You Are
- Written by David Lichfield
Songwriters, just like the run-of-the-mill general public, react to close personal tragedy in a myriad of manners. Whether it be via bombastic, string-drenched and cathartic radio-channelled rock (the Manics or Feeder), bleak and sparse lo-fi with a twist of pitch-black humour (Mark 'Eels' Everett) or a 26-minute, 9-part slice of prog-rock ('Shine On You Crazy Diamond' by Pink Floyd - although it's targeted figure wasn't actually dead, in fact, he was oddly present during the sessions), it's almost a certainty that bereavement, loss and/or sadness will inevitably colour creative output when musical architects come into intimate contact with them.
Tim Presley, frontman of Los Angeles' previously shoegazey proposition Darker My Love, opts for melodic sunshine and punchy defiance in the band's third long-player. Sidestepping the fuzzy, drony textures of their previous efforts, Alive As You Are is a jangly, celebratory affair constructed after the death of Presley's father, and is tinged with a laidback, West Coast influence which arrives as somewhat of a shock compared with their previous work. With a new-found emphasis on song-structure and pop hooks, Alive As You Are marks an eye-opening generic reshuffle for the act - 2 of whom famously helped form part of Mark E. Smith's ever-rotating line-up of The Fall, circa 2007.
This is an unashamedly sixties-tinged record, even audaciously so, and is distinctive in its marriage of major-chord, psychedelic melody with a raw, distorted filter of slacker-friendly Pavement lo-fi. 'Backseat' nails it's colours to the mast without hesitation, fading in with a Byrds-like arpeggio which is complimented by the arrival of Stooges guitar chops and a rimshot-heavy, one-chord, harmony-led verse, before giving way to an intoxicating chorus. Throughout, Alive As You Are displays a sense of the carefree, reveling in its obvious influences, rather than disguising them.
A sense of fulfillment permeates the album, and the band play with a loose, summery confidence. Their new found love of blatant melody shines through for the duration, while songs are sequenced thoughtfully, and stripped down and built up where they should be. Additional instruments (largely organs - which play a pivotal role in the punchy, mid-tempo 'New America') are used sparingly yet when they do appear, they do so powerfully.
The album concerns itself with mid-tempo, blissed-out harmonies for the most part but when the pace changes, it packs potency. 'Maple Day Getaway' incorporates testosterone-powered, choppy bar chords played out against its refrain of 'Act like you were born again, in your own time'. The bouncy 'Trail Day Line' is even better, intoxicated by both the swagger and sweetnesss of a grungier Teenage Fanclub. The punchy production and shimmering arpeggios form a convincing wall-of-sound, and its hard not to appreciate the triumphant nature of the album, considering the sense of loss that informed it, but moments of brooding melancholia wouldn't go amiss. The melodies are easily accessible, though this could well be because of their familiarity. Stoner-friendly moments of snail-paced sunshine like 'June Bloom' could be equally seen as blissful washes of melody or blindingly dull mediocrity, depending upon the listener's point of view.
When the quintet turn to chunky aggression, it reinvigorates them. 'Dear Author' is an enthralling kaleidoscopic stomp pinned down by the timeless device of the on-beat, persistent singular keyboard-note, and it's these smatterings of punk-tinted aggression which help sustain the interest, and move the album away from Kinks, Beatles and Grateful Dead territory. Alive As You Are is similar to the last MGMT album in terms of its unexpected take on archaic sounds, and there's a healthy balance between the contemporary and the retro. Not the unblemished triumph against adversity it thinks it is, but a convincing reinvention, even if it does get a bit Dandy Warhols at times.