Darwin Deez - 'Darwin Deez' (Lucky Number) Released 12/04/10

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Hailed in many quarters as New York’s latest alternative pop sensation, Darwin Deez has wasted no time in unleashing his debut album, on the back of some hearty endorsement on both sides of the Atlantic.

Darwin led a somewhat nomadic existence during his formative years, so you’d think that this early batch of material from him would be full of life, rich in influence and widely inspired.  

Wrong. While you can’t argue with the quality of album opener ‘Constellations’, kicking things off in all its laid-back, ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’-quoting summer pop glory, the record subsequently fails to push on from there, never really getting going in any truly memorable way.

The sense of repetitiveness is probably the album’s most frustrating feature. ‘Deep Sea Divers’, for all its lovelorn sentiment, features a set of guitar parts which are just that little bit similar to those heard in ‘Constellations’, while the percussion-led bounce of ‘The City’ suffers from the rhythm section frequently drowning out our protagonist’s vocals.

At its best, Darwin’s singing style is near to what you’d imagine Julian Casablancas to sound like after a prozac milkshake. At worst, it’s as monotonous as one of the album’s seemingly-endless series of riff couplets.  

Despite all the different bells and whistles he attempts to work into each song’s framework, very few of them manage to muscle their way into the foreground, amid a haze of overly-familiar vocals, processed drum beats and an exhausted selection of guitar jangles.

Even though ‘Bed Space’ and new single ‘Radar Detector’ provide welcome changes of texture, with the former illustrating Darwin in more restrained, Local Natives-esque territory, and the latter injecting some much-needed pace into the affair, the overriding uniformity of the rest of his musical approach makes it all a bit of a forgettable blur.

It may be that expectations have been raised too high for an album recorded using just a computer and a mic, but the hype which has surrounded this lad would definitely seem more justified if his first long player were to showcase more variety.

From a lyrical point-of-view, Darwin Deez is certainly creative in places. Yes, there are a couple of radio ‘hits’ on offer here and THAT hair will undoubtedly be mimicked by young rapscallions all the way to September. Musically though, this debut is found wanting.