Gothic Theatre
Darker My Love
Let’s not fuck about here. It’s 2008. Some people say the world is coming to a close. The sun is getting hotter. Ice isn’t what it used to be. Irony is dead, and spring no longer exists.
Everyone everywhere is sick and tired of the rock and roll ruse. And, so, an authentic rock and roll outfit has its work cut out. On its sophomore release, 2, Darker My Love is sure as hell up for the task at hand. This is a band with a big engine. They paint on a titanic canvas. It’s a widescreen, 3D, posi-traction kind of scenario. They want to get you worked up and they want to take you somewhere. “Music is an escape,” explains drummer Andy Granelli.
This band has no choice but to do what they do: they are a gang and their weapons are musical prowess and artistic ambition. Words + music + feeling = what these five guys were put on earth to do.
Though they come from all over the U.S. – Andy and Tim Presley from the Bay Area, Jared Everett from Pennsylvania, Rob Barbato from Boston and Will Canzoneri from Mississippi – they all came up through the same portal: back room and basement shows, forgettable bands and passion they can’t shake. For one, it was 45-minute drives through rural Pennsylvania to some stenchy hellhole of a basement to see five local bands; for another it was cruising BART at 16 to get to Gilman Street in Berkeley to see Swingin’ Utters. Over in Boston, Rob was soaking up Grateful Dead, briefly trying on a jazz habit (“I fancied myself a jazz dude. And then realized I wasn’t.”). Five guys, four cities, one conclusion: they’d been infected by rock and roll.
