Labels: Odd Box
Review by: MH
I must admit that despite being of the right vintage to have been around when The Darling Buds were first active (particularly their early 90s phase), I’m not hugely familiar with their back catalogue. It was never that easy to hear everything in those days and I was probably too busy listening to Carter USM, Mega City Four and Senseless Things to have given them a proper go despite being aware of them and having heard the odd song on the radio or on Going Live with Philip Schofield! I’m probably more likely to appreciate them fully these days though. Anyway, the band are back with their first new songs in almost 25 years and are predominantly made up of members who were in the band during the different life cycles including original singer Andrea Lewis-Jarvis. Those two and a half decades appear to have done little to the band as they sound remarkably fresh on this EP. It’s a bright and infectious set of songs that feels very 90s right down to the little guitar flourishes at the end of each line in opener “Evergreen” and is closed out with the slower “Twenty One Aches”.