There’s more than just a buzz around Dark Dark Dark and their second album, Wild Go. There’s a hive of adoration in some quarters. Why though? That’s not the easiest question to answer. There’s a definite beauty to Wild Go from the very start, though it is a suitably forboding beauty – rarely does a band so accurately depict themselves in their name as with Dark Dark Dark.
Take, for instance, ‘Daydream’, which opens with a gorgeous, care-free piano and ends in a way befitting of almost any David Lynch project you care to pick out. Later, the haunting ‘Something For Myself’ echoes grand piano folk of acts like Our Broken Garden – vocalist Nona Invie does all she can to convince you she’s on the verge of something sad and terrifying and dramatic, and listening through the record, she might just be.
The hype around Dark Dark Dark is a little odd, perhaps, given that they are at points little more than a collective of fascinating ideas. Nevertheless, these ideas are so coherently gathered, so wonderfully put together that you cannot help but fall for swooning chamber folk ballads or lighter (but still oh so dark) tracks like ‘Right Path’.
Consider not, then, Dark Dark Dark’s considerable following, nor the hype, nor the influences they have caught in their anthology of sound. Consider instead the unrivalled beauty of the best tracks present here on Wild Go. There have been better chamber folk albums, yes. But not many.