Attempting to suit all of Daryl Johns’ influences into one field is a frightening activity. Among the many many inspirations for his self-titled debut album, he’s cited “Jessie’s Woman” and “Baba O’Riley”; emo and Hüsker Dü; Quick Instances at Ridgemont Excessive; the ’60s, ’80s, and the hair, particularly, of the ’70s; burgers, shakes, and fries; and Mickey Mouse. To attempt to make sense of all of it is to be a hapless Tony Montana standing earlier than the mountain of blow on his desk, muttering, “We gotta get organized right here.” Good luck with all that.
Daryl Johns started a decade in the past as a sequence of unreleased songs when Johns, a classically skilled upright bass participant and jazz prodigy, bought sick of enjoying requirements and began noodling round with totally different genres, “quilting pop melodies collectively in a maximalist method,” as he places it. And after signing with good friend and well-known chiller Mac DeMarco’s label, Johns started experimenting along with his personal offbeat takes on indie rock. However it will be remiss to mistake the sum for its components; Daryl Johns isn’t any pastiche, as an alternative creating its personal sprawling universe of loosey-goosey, feel-good jaunts. Portray fashionable landscapes in retro strokes, the album’s sound is uniquely recent but acquainted in one million totally different instructions.
Lead single “I’m So Critical” is probably the most synth-pop-inspired tune on the album. Within the neon-drenched music video, Johns leans full-tilt into MTV-style Americana, shredding in entrance of a Mel’s Drive-In (one other inspiration he’s named: “diner rock”). Whereas intelligent and positively a banger, “I’m So Critical” can be the album’s most literal tune, preferring to rehash its influences relatively than delve into one thing stranger. Nonetheless, the winkingly self-referential lyrics within the bridge appear to function a sweeping introduction to the entire album: “Hit the EQ,” he yelps via the fourth wall. “Now trip the quantity.”
By the remainder of the album, we study that eclecticism is Johns’ chief energy. In “Barbecue within the Solar” and “Buddies Without end,” he melds ’80s textures with ’60s pop kinds, reverbing the hell out of his layered, DIY-Ronettes vocals. His fragmented lyrics evoke bits and items of roller-rink nostalgia—by no means outlining a transparent scene, however creating vivid, blurry flashes of the fleeting moments earlier than the lights come up. No surprise he’s described the album’s sound as “TV jingle reminiscences.”
