Album Review: Double Down by Darwin Deez

Addiction, movies and magic tricks are just some of the domestic metaphors that Jack-of-all-trades Darwin Smith uses to produce a series of domestic and anecdotal examples to demonstrate that our feelings towards objects mirror those of romantic relationships. Speaking to the man himself in July, he told us that his third album is about encouraging people to “feel their feelings”. Double Down hosts a spectrum of amorous perspectives from irritation (see “Kill Your Attitude”) to the simply sweet, “Melange Mining Co.” Opener “Last Cigarette” conflates the addiction of nicotine and love to the extent it could refer to either, or both, simultaneously.

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Back in 2010, the helter-skelter-haired indie darling Darwin Deez perfected the art of simple, chirpy guitar pop. For many, singles like ‘Radar Detector’ and ‘Constellations’ soundtracked seemingly endless summers drenched in cheap cider and concoctions pilfered from a parent’s spirit cupboard, where all you had to worry about was whether you would get ID’d or not at the local Londis. With the innocent riffs of Two Door Cinema Club and a lyrical wit that somehow captured the tumult of a not-quite adult emotional spectrum, Darwin Deez was an artist of a very specific place and time.

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Darwin Deez (née Darwin Smith) is indie rock’s tinkerer. He obsesses over minute formal variation, typically the realm of the mercenary, the avant-gardist, and the hobbyist, and while his winking, performative play with rock tropes occasionally slouches into cynicism, Darwin swings between the latter two. Every chord a jazz chord on his self-titled 2009 debut, he palm-muted them all over tinny, ditty-bop Casio percussion.

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