http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/64345/dark-dark-dark-the-snow-magic/

Dark Dark Dark is one of those band names that reviewers will take as a challenge. I can just imagine a guy at Rolling Stone getting an LP of Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All to review and going, “Metallica, eh? With a name like that, these guys better be pretty damn metal.” Similar scenarios play out in my head for groups like N.W.A., Fear, and Lightning Bolt. Dark Dark Dark’s debut album is titled The Snow Magic, which either tempers their band name or leads one to think, “They have to be talking about really evil snow magic, right?”

The first surprise when receiving the disc was looking at the band’s lineup. There’s Nona Marie Invie on accordion, piano, and vocals, Marshall Lacount on banjo and vocals, Jonathan Kaiser on cello and backing vocals, and Todd Chandler on bass. It turns out Dark Dark Dark is not a doom metal band or an especially depressed emo group, but an old-time string band. But unlike their brethren in Old Crow Medicine Show, Railroad Earth, and Yonder Mountain String Band, Dark Dark Dark does indeed explore the more, well, dark sounds of their instruments. The album’s opener, “Ashes”, effectively announces what the band is about. As swirling minor-key accordion and banjo evoke an early 20th-century circus setting, Invie theatrically tells the story of a lover’s rendezvous which ends in the woman accidentally falling into a river and drowning. That leads to the chorus, “I know you want to scatter my ashes / I know you want to scatter them far and wide.” The second song, “The Benefit of the Doubt” is a love song mostly sung by Lacount that begins with the lines “On your final day, did you think of me / And did I get the benefit of the doubt? / On my dying day, I will change my ways / And I’ll stop all this wandering around, dear.” The music starts off sparsely, with lightly strummed banjo chords and plucked cello, but shifts into a surprisingly jaunty, yet still minor-key, tune.

“A Cloud Story” is much more ethereal sounding song at first, as Invie sings about a dream she had against soft, reverby backing vocals and arco cello and bass. Then Lacount takes over the singing and the banjo and accordion come in, and the band immediately sounds old-timey again. Oh, and the dream that Lacount and Invie are singing about involves the clouds falling from the sky and the people on the ground patiently waiting to die. At this point, it’s clear that Dark Dark Dark are going to come very close to living up to their name, not an easy thing to do when your band includes full-time accordion and banjo players. But Invie and Lacount do an admirable job of bringing out different aspects of instruments that are best recognized for their upbeat sounds.

For all its dour subject matter, The Snow Magic is an entertaining album. The instrumental arrangements are a high point, and Invie’s accordion playing in particular is top-notch. Many of the songs here are uptempo and even approach being bouncy, such as the sea chanty-like “Ferment in Dm” (sample lyric: “And when I hold you underwater / count which breath will be your last”) and the piano-driven “That Light” (“Where’s that light you’re looking for / you can’t see it with your head underground / So just dig yourself out”). “New York Song” concerns moving to the city and has many complaints about it, but the chorus concludes that, “Being here is better than wishing we’d stayed.” Because Dark Dark Dark use their instruments in a variety of ways, even the slow songs manage to avoid sounding repetitive. Invie’s accordion usually drives the music with complicated and catchy minor-key melodies, but the band is equally effective when they hold back and let the vocals take center stage. The dirge-like “Dig a Grave” is probably the album’s best example. The accordion and cello play long chords under a simple banjo line and Lacount’s mournful lead vocal really sells the song, a lament to a dead relative.

Dark Dark Dark have a curious approach to harmony. Often Lacount and Invie will be singing the same lyrics, in harmony, yet they don’t quite line up. It’s an interesting technique that makes it sound like they were recorded separately, to the same music but without listening to the other’s performance. It gives the band’s vocals a slightly off-balance, disorienting feel which works quite well with the somewhat stranded-in-time vibe of the music. In addition, Minneapolis musician and Andrew Bird drummer Martin Dosh pops up throughout the album to add touches of percussion, from drums on the opener “Ashes” to xylophones elsewhere. He does an excellent job of accentuating the music without taking the focus off of the main band.

Dark Dark Dark certainly work hard to live up to their name. There is very little cheer to be found in the lyrics, but they’re far from the first musicians to specialize in the morbid and depressing. I would say that they warrant two Darks in their name, but don’t quite hit three Darks’ worth of bleakness. However, “Dark Dark Dark” has a much better ring to it than “Dark Dark”, so they probably made the right call. Regardless, The Snow Magic is a strong debut that evokes dark times in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It also evoked in me memories of the HBO series Deadwood, which featured a lot of dark times itself in the late 19th century, and often played downbeat period songs over its closing credits.

(review of limited edition first pressing of “The Snow Magic” from Reveille Magazine)

How does one sculpt intense music with minimal percussion and no electrical outputs? Local quartet Dark Dark Dark has the answer: mood, mood, mood. Despite employing little more than accordion, strings, banjo, and voice, The Snow Magic still manages to swell with dramatic tension, its streamlined sound marching confidently forward. Oh and what the hell, a little drumming here and there from local superstar Martin Dosh certainly won’t hurt any album.

Even as the rollicking saloon jam “Ashes” launches the listener into the record, Dosh keeps his presence graceful with just a dash of frenzy, always ceding the spotlight to the band’s rustic interweaving melodies. The ghostly harmonizing groans on “A Cloud Story” provide just one example of Dark Dark Dark’s unique blend of old world suspense and intricate aural trickery, and surely due credit goes to their producer – Minneapolis music scene veteran Rob Skoro, whose own records have always sparkled among the crowded local singer-songwriter field. Skoro’s mixing board prowess is readily evident when the vocalists burst out in front of the music with the memorable line, “there’s no ocean in Minneapolis!” on the rousing “Colors” and when the accordion keys can be heard ever so slightly tapping along with the exhaled notes on the stately closer “All the Things.”

A band equal parts haunted hay ride and Beirut, Dark Dark Dark is more than just bells, whistles, and expertly blended vocal patterns, it all comes back to their nagging emphasis on mood. To help capture the stark intimacy they were going for Dark Dark Dark eschewed working in a traditional studio setting, opting instead to make the album, as their website phrases it, “in a cozy Minneapolis house.” Dark Dark Dark’s decision to home record paid off in spades, lending a candlelit basement sleepover vibe to the chorus of “Junk Bones.” Elsewhere the quiet and bright pizzicato in “Trouble No More” evokes a lonely attic window as the morning sun creeps in.

Ruminations on ghosts, winter, and graveyards may run throughout The Snow Magic’s lyrics, but Dark Dark Dark’s black mood still sounds pleasant and friendly. A few years ago Spaghetti Western String Co. excited local music fans by putting their own modern spin on organic antiquated sounds and Dark Dark Dark seems poised to following in their footsteps. Thanks to the fresh perspectives of the talent working both in front of and behind the record button The Snow Magic makes the old sound invitingly new.