Steeped in everything from 70s classic rock, satirical lyricists like Harry Nilsson, and current dark indie rock poster boys like Nick Cave, The Demon Rind’s third effort, Something Nice I Want To Tell You, is anything but easily classifiable. The Seattle band takes the album title from a line in their falsetto-fronted song “Lonely This Evening,” a track that gives you a pretty accurate glimpse into what to expect.
The piano-heavy album manages to be both lonely and at a times darkly humorous, two seemingly incongruitous sentiments that the band pulls off remarkably well. Above all else, there is a sad beauty about the record. Songs like “Summons,” with its soft melancholy intro and the more driving but equally somber “Don’t Think,” immediately following, are among the band’s best to date.
Bands like Big Star, the Kinks and Thin Lizzy are name-checked throughout the press materials and on the surface those comparisons seem a tad confusing, but after repeated listens they become more and more obvious; like the guitar solo squeal at the end of “Luck Has Some Kind Of Face,” sounding very much like something Lizzy’s Gary Moore would have recorded decades ago; or the sweet harmonies on a song like “Stupid Luck,” that sound just one step removed from a power pop band. You also begin to catch the dark humor weaved throughout the lyrics after several listens. The surprisingly upbeat album opener, “Got Me Believing” is a bit of an outlier of sorts, sounding almost optimistic. Fellow Pacific Northwest musician Jesse Sykes joins the band on beautifully despondent “Lonely This Evening,” just two tracks later, a song very much keeping with the theme of the record.
Musically, Something Nice I Want To Tell You is a step forward from 2017’s Tall Trees and sounds like a completely different band that put out their now almost 10-year-old debut.