Darwin Smith released his self-titled debut album as Darwin Deez in 2010, a kooky, lo-fi set of maddeningly catchy nursery rhymes for Manic Pixie Dreamboys. The 28-year old Wesleyan graduate recently moved from New York City to Asheville, N.C., and seems to be something of a loner, scene-wise (he's pals with label mates Friends, and loves Deerhoof), though his ability to write awkward but cutesy earworms sets him alongside Foster the People and Passion Pit when it comes to sync potential. To date, only two Darwin Deez songs have been featured on commercials, which is surprising since his musical persona's the perfect match for advertising's enduring preoccupation with precious, homespun whimsy: spindly perm, mustache, and headband; dance moves from the "How to Ace Your Wes Anderson Audition" guidebook.
Smith comes across similarly disenchanted and tempted by the prospect on Songs for Imaginative People, where he's torn between celebrating and bemoaning commercial excess: On opener "(800) Human", he laments how we waste our lives as collateral for empty material satisfaction in a lolling drawl that comes off like a bad James Murphy impersonation (which is doubly unfortunate since LCD Soundsystem lampooned vacuity with greater elegance). On the subsequent "You Can't Be My Girl", Smith tries to resist his attraction to a wastrel whose "best friend is a red cup," wincingly encapsulated by his declaration, "I love you are horrible." ("I wouldn't expect most people to get that pause," he explained in an interview.)
"If the songs on my debut had a bite-sized element to them, the new songs are definitely full-size and king-size," Smith has said of Songs. Darwin Deez was played entirely on a four-string electric guitar, which gave the album a fairly banal, beatifically chiming feel throughout. He's expanded his palette here-- buying those two extra strings and a powerful fuzz pedal-- and tried to play against type by throwing destructive curveballs in the path of his pretty little ditties. As a result, Songs is distinctly uncatchy, a benefit for anyone driven mad by the wacky squawk of "Radar Detector" a few summers back. There's an Autechre sample on "(800) Human)", where he's taken inspiration from the Warp duo's difficult nature and parlayed it into a stalling, monotonous clank; the chorus to "Moonlit" is similarly unappealing, guitar bashed and blaring beneath his awkward yowl. Single "Free (The Editorial Me)" behaves itself structurally, but billows around a huge fuzzy blowout that sounds like Smith trying to sound like anyone but himself.
If the hooks fail to anchor in your brain, at least Smith's appalling way with an extended lyrical metaphor will: "Alice" has "monopolized cute/ But talk about a trivial pursuit!" On "Redshift", he's oblivious as to why it didn't work out, but inadvertently answers his own question: "Spiral galaxies would turn in your eyes/ When I came by with a small surprise/ You loved all of my little quarks, so what went wrong?" The impression left by Songs for Imaginative People is of a guy trying way too hard to be taken seriously. Smith hasn't yet got the creative or musical chops to make a capital-A album, and completely shunning his naturally artless expression isn't the way to get there.
"Have you ever seen a wrecking ball as small as her?/ She smashes up my glasses when she passes but it doesn't hurt/ I can't see straight now with this crush/ But I have all of this love to give, and there's no rush," Smith sings on "Chelsea's Hotel". It's Songs' sweetest line, a neat visual treatment for a commercial for spectacles or a dating website that works because of its naïve charm, not in spite of it. That's the undoing of Songs for Imaginative People, where Darwin Deez is all too keen to show how the sausages are made.
