With 2, a slightly louder, more expansive re-imagining of their 2006 debut, L.A.'s Darker My Love continue pushing slick, devil-may-care psych rock, meticulously modeled after like-minded Californians who've either exhausted their dangling-cigarette cool (B.R.M.C.), pissed away their potential (Brian Jonestown Massacre), or simply never had much hope in the first place (the Warlocks). However, even in its natural habitat (say, Bomp! Records ca. 1999), 2 would still sound exhausting and redundant.
It's not like these guys don't have potential either. For what it's worth, Mark E. Smith hand-picked frontman Tim Presley and bassist/singer Rob Barbato to work on the Fall's Reformation Post TLC, and Presley, along with ex-Distillers drummer Andy Granelli, cut his teeth in cult hardcore act the Nerve Agents. The problem lies more in the band's miscalculation of its skills. Even for their somewhat narrow field of vision, Darker My Love are all over the place, tracing psych-rock through each of its incarnations since the 1960s.
Despite their lyrical focus on L.A.-inspired imagery and existential meltdowns, DML sound surprisingly British. Presley's chirpy vocals offset the droning riffs on "Blue Day", emulating the limp fist-pump perfected by muscular shoegazers like Ride or Swervedriver. "Pale Sun" is practically a dance song, looping its Madchester bassline around a heavily harmonized-- though hardly memorable-- melody. Yet while it's possible DML may be taking a stab at British understatement, they're more likely aiming for a certain idealized California coolness-- and coming up short in the process. "Talking Words", featuring the line "Baby you got me talking words," provides 2 with a much-needed sense of humor, but the song's merely a rehash of "Bohemian Like You", which was merely a rehash of...well, you get the point.
If Presley and Barbato could just muster some semblance of a threatening sneer, their effects pedals wouldn't have to die in vain. Sadly though, most of 2 relies on slow burners and underwhelming soundscapes intended to overwhelm. The "freakouts," if you can remain awake for them, typically consist of additional strings, additional wah-wah, or a baffling mixture of the two. The prolonged outro to "All the Hurry and Wait", which piles crest upon crest of cymbal splashes and reverb leads, especially proves how safe and easy a supposedly subversive genre like psych-rock can be. If DML had merely wanted to serve up psych/shoegaze fan fiction, it would've at least been an understandable move. But they had to go ahead and muck it up with pompous codas and celestial posturing, all without any sort of backbone to hold the whole mess up.
