Deciding to call your modern-rock band the Dark Romantics is sort of like christening your rusted 1993 Dodge "the Pussy Wagon," or naming your boring TV show Dirty Sexy Money: just saying something, unfortunately, doesn't make it so. In the case of the Dark Romantics, the "romanticism" seems to mostly come from lead singer Eric Collins, who throughout Heartbreaker (more wishful thinking), imitates Julian Casablancas' prematurely world-weary monotone down to each drowsily drawn-out syllable. As for the "darkness"-- well, I suppose that refers to trenchant observations like "Love and pain/ They are one and the same."
The Dark Romantics' second full-length offers a competent snapshot of current corporate rock, which is steeped in half-decade-old reference points. Thus, Collins is an eager descendent of the Strokes, Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos, Placebo's Brian Molko, and the Killers' Brandon Flowers, wearing the vague air of dissolution like so much Axe body spray. "She's got stars in her eyes and money in her ears," he sings in "Hush Your Mouth", trying to leer knowingly like Jarvis Cocker; unfortunately, this guy is to Jarvis Cocker what Scott Stapp was to Eddie Vedder. Jarvis effortlessly exudes an intoxicating mixture of sex, cruelty, and compassion, while Collins sounds like he might keep a dog-eared copy of the Neil Strauss's The Game under his pillow. "She breathes new life in me when I'm drowned in clichés," he sings of his beloved on "Love & Pain"-- she must have her hands pretty full.
The band, meanwhile, does a pretty decent approximation of the sleek dance rock that the Killers rode to success, but no one in the room has the songwriting chops to manage a "Mr. Brightside" or "All These Things That I've Done". As a result, the band just sounds like another misbegotten hopeful, another group that will bust their ass playing hundreds of shows and enduring endless morning-show radio interviews in the vague hopes that one day, a song of theirs will be picked up and used for background music in an episode of "Gossip Girl".
