Some say love and hate are made of the same stuff. And when Sam Windett pleads, "Lose your hate, it's a game/ Come on love me, it's your fate" on "Dart for My Sweetheart", you can hear him navigating the terrain between the two. Not once on Derdang Derdang, the second album from London-based Archie Bronson Outfit, does he sing a whimsical melody or even deliver his vocals with authoritative confidence. Instead, his voice quivers with uncertainty and howls with murderous desperation. And it fits with the album's principal conceit, spelled out in its first track, when Windett stammers: "It's so fun to love someone/ But try, try to get, get over it."
As a sentiment, it's hardly new for pop music-- heartbroken souls driven to kill are as old as the blues. Appropriately, ABO take the majority of their musical cues from the blues-- as well as 1960s garage rock. But the band avoids the trappings of its influences and builds something new out of age-old sources. Taken individually, no part of an ABO song dazzles. In lieu of flashy solos or virtuoso playing, the tasteful and understated instrumental elements form a dark and brooding whole. And there's almost never a flooring shift or change, just determined marches that pick up volume and intensity without swerving from their relentlessly steady tempos.
On "Cuckoo", the band lays down a foundation of Mo Tucker-ish toms and snare and a repeated acoustic guitar phrase. But as Windett continues his lovelorn death wishes, threatening, "I'd bury myself to hold you, darling," a bevy of elements turn it into something much less skeletal. A sustained, whistling guitar calls, bird-like, and a chorus of backup singers parrot it back in "Walk on the Wild Side" doo doo doos. "Rituals", the album's most frantic number, is more dynamic. As the drums move from withdrawn military-style rolls to frenetic gallops, Windett abandons a mournful wail for primal hooting. Fueled by a skronky Fun House saxophone, the song speeds up into a dizzying series of abrupt stops and starts with Windett's screams punctuating the gaps. It would have been the perfect ending to an already unsettling record, but ABO tacked on an anemic acoustic rendition of "Dart for My Sweetheart", re-titled "Harp for My Sweetheart", that serves only to spoil the album's claustrophobic atmosphere.
Outside of the closer, there's an impressive coherence on Derdang Derdang, showing how well ABO has developed an original and guiding aesthetic. But like the narrow thematic scope of Windett's lovesick wailing, such a restricted musical palette means that many of the songs blend together. To a degree, this sense of overlap seems intentional: Lyrics are recycled and nearly all the songs feature wordless refrains, with melodies as simple and memorable as nursery rhymes. So even if Windett never reconciles his contradictory impulses in the lyrics, ABO's obsessively hermetic approach to songwriting makes for a focused and assured statement.
