Darlingside are back with more bucolic future-folk on their new album Fish Pond Fish. The Massachusetts quartet have not lain idle since their last full-length LP, 2018’s Extralife, having released the Look Up & Fly Away EP in 2019 and a 20-track collection of instrumentals earlier this year. Where Extralife imagined a post-apocalyptic future, Fish Pond Fish is essentially a love letter to the natural world, rooted in the here and now. Work that began in late 2019 - with the band living together in the studio with producer Peter Katis - had to be halted and the record was subsequently completed with each member working remotely from home. For a band whose character is reliant on - and embodied by - a finely balanced synergy (live, they perform around just one central mic) this sudden change must have thrown up significant challenges. Ultimately, though, these have worked in Darlingside’s favour, the resultant album having more in the way of space and intimacy than those that came before.

Darlingside - the world’s coolest band without a drummer - totally floored us with 2016’s Birds Say.  The band enjoyed much praise from the mainstream press here in the UK and subsequently picked up a lot of new admirers.  Now they’re back with a new record, Extralife, to the delight of one and all here at Red Guitar H.Q.  At first glance the record is a little more weird and therefore a little less immediate than its predecessor but the band’s thrust remains the same.  Welcome to harmony-driven acoustic bliss with uncommon quirks and unusual weight.

It’s little wonder that Darlingside’s quad-vocal acoustic loveliness has had glowing reviews back home in Massachusetts, with critics comparing them to the legendary likes of Crosby Stills, Nash & Young and Simon & Garfunkel.  Even though their sound is heavily informed by these godfathers of acoustic music, Darlingside are much more than just hippy throwbacks.  Amid the bliss of the mandolin, banjo, lush acoustic guitars and strings, more contemporary heavyweights Iron & Wine, Fleet Foxes and Nickel Creek are all brought to mind as well.  Birds Say gets a UK release on July 15th (the band already having released an EP and debut album Pilot Machines in the US) and they will be playing a short UK tour at the end of this month starting with a slot at the Cambridge Folk festival.