Dark Dark Dark review from Crawdaddy Magazine
originally posted at http://crawdaddy.wolfgangsvault.com/Review/Dark-Dark-Dark-The-Snow-Magic.html :
On stage, Dark Dark Dark lives up to their name with an anti-charismatic presentation that’s nonetheless riveting. Nona Marie Invie cradles a giant accordion on her lap, squeezing out gloomy, minor key chords that complement the stygian rumbling of Todd Chandler’s bass and the mournful counter-melodies of Jonathan Kaiser’s cello. Marshall LaCount’s banjo supplies the brightest accents, but they come from some dark hollow where the bluest elements of bluegrass dance with the clanking rhythms of the Balkans. The band dresses down with a wardrobe that suggests clothing acquired from a late-’80s Seattle—comfortable plaid shirts, faded jeans, Doc Martens, and tattered footwear, the timeless garb of student radicals, street musicians, and working class youth with low-paying jobs. Invie’s face is barely visible behind her accordion. She peers over her instrument and her large eyeglasses give her the look of a librarian well-versed in arcane tomes full of forbidden secrets. LaCount dresses in black from head to foot, with a black cap on his head, looking like a turn of the century Wobbly or an American anarchist ready to hit the road and fight the good fight for truth, justice, and the American way. They all have the rumbled look of hobos that just stepped out of a cross-country boxcar ride, and that impression isn’t too far from the truth.
Dark Dark Dark’s principals met on the road. Invie had indeed hopped freight trains and wandered aimlessly around the United Stares and Europe playing music and soaking up the sounds that surrounded her on her sojourn. LaCount had run away from home and spent time drifting down the mighty Mississippi on a homemade raft singing for his supper at myriad ports of call. When they met, they recognized each other as kindred spirits and began writing original songs in an effort to busk their way down to New Orleans. They played anywhere they could—smoky bars, the homes of kindly strangers, student lofts, and street corners, developing a sound that blends the dark folk music of American and Eastern Europe. Kaiser and Chandler joined up somewhere along the way as the band crisscrossed America on a never-ending, impromptu tour that honed their sound into a singular, haunting style that suggests the freedom and loneliness of the wandering musician looking for a worm place to stay the night and a sip of something to warm the bones and keep away the melancholy. After two years of travel, they settled down in Minneapolis long enough to record The Snow Magic, a powerful collection that lives up to the band’s chosen moniker.
The album opens with the startling wintertime clatter of “Ashes”, a skewed waltz that blends gypsy exuberance and Appalachian fatalism into a tale that likens romance to attempted murder. Invie wails, “You won’t scatter my ashes,” while the band surrounds her with a wall of bracing discord. The rest of the album is almost pastoral in comparison, but the landscape that the band paints is bleak, gray, and inhospitable, with muted tones of loss and solitude. “Colors” uses a marimba, played by guest drummer Martin Dosh from Andrew Bird’s band, and bowed cello and bass to create an ominous mood. Boy meets girl and then they merge into an explosion of psychedelic desire and frustration. The vocals of Invie and LaCount are full of longing, but they’re soon overwhelmed by brooding bass and cello lines that obliterate the moment.
“Dig a Grave” is a mysterious lament played on banjo and accordion, with intimations of murder and suicide, a wrenching performance with Invie’s weeping harmonies and sinister sustained notes from the cello adding to the song’s chilling ambience. “New York Song” is another waltz, this one mellower, a salute to winter in the city that dreams of the coming joy of springtime, even as it nods to the summer suicide of two hopeless lovers. “Trouble No More” lives up to its ironic title, starting out as a jaunty “Babe, I’m leavin’ you” country song before slipping into a hopeless, self-destructive dirge. LaCount and Invie end the tune with wailing Southern gospel harmonies full of dispiriting gloom. There’s nothing really uplifting on the album, but the music of Dark Dark Dark weaves an inviting psychedelic web, all the more powerful for its reliance on acoustic instruments. The album’s organic feel makes these desperately poetic grievances perfect companions for long winter evenings in lonely candlelit rooms.
Tags: dark dark dark, review, the snow magic
