Not the Metal Band
Coming off as Frou Frou for the current decade, Darkness Falls (not to be confused with popular metalcore act of yesteryear) drops a new batch of reverby, echoey pop in the same gloomy vain as Feist’s recent Metals. Alive In Us proves them more than just an “indie duo.”
With vocalist and keyboard player Josephine Philip and guitarist Ina Lindgreen playing off each other’s textural sensibility, the album kicks off with “Noise On the Line,” a Jenny Lewis-esque country-pop lullaby just quiet enough to ease the listener into forgetting these two are from Copenhagen. They sound as well-versed in American music as any artist on Saddle Creek.
Tracks like “Night Will Be Dawn” and “Alive In Us” sound like slowed down versions of Cults singles, but in a good way. It seems musicians today are taking Phil Spectors’ methods of girl pop maudlinism to heart. It’s about damn time. “Before the Light Takes Us” is an all-out power pop hand-clapper with thumping drums and surf leads. In other words: It’s just fun.
Take comfort in the fact that bands in other continents, like Darkness Falls, make use of their environment and sense of soundscapes without applying it to cliched Euro genres such as post-rock, electro and trance. Sometimes the best American indie pop isn’t born in your backyard, but in a studio in Denmark.
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