Darlia - Candyman EP Review

From the opening moments of Darlia's 'Candyman' EP, you can tell that Darlia are a band that exude confidence and, from then on, you know that you're in for something good. The opener and title track makes you sit up and pay attention with loud, grungy riffs that contain lots of fuzz and string bends. There's been a strong buzz around Darlia recently and, on the strength of this song, you can tell that hype is deserved.

The second song 'Animal Kingdom' is much calmer in comparison due to lighter sounding guitar that pleasantly drifts along accompanied by its memorable "I wanna know, what you know" lyric. The third and final track 'Blood Money' is a nice middle ground between the two previous songs. Not as in your face as the title track, but much more energetic than 'Animal Kingdom' with guitar riffs and noodles that wouldn't sound out of place on an early Arctic Monkeys album. The vocals on the 'Candyman' EP are raw but melodic which suits the slack grunge Darlia appear to have mastered.  

The Seattle grunge of Nirvana and pure Britishness of bands like Blur combine to make Darlia's music something quite unique for our time. This is surprising given that in a recent interview with Contactmusic, frontman Nathan Day claimed that he'd 'never listened to any Nirvana albums before' and that he's only ever bought two albums in his life: 'One was Definitely Maybe [Oasis] and the other was Babyshambles'. At the same time though, they sound fresh and ultra modern, so if you're into 90s guitar driven music, you'll like this very much. 

With just three songs and the whole thing lasting only nine minutes, this is a short, sweet and well-crafted EP. There's a song that's hard and aggressive, one that's slightly more subdued and one that's just plain fun so, while you're likely to be into at least one of them, the chances are you'll probably love all three.

3.5/5

Max Cussons