Album Review: Darlia - Petals

Blackpool trio Darlia pack quite a lot of seaside rock into this brisk eight-song, 27-minute mini album. While Nathan Day’s vocals frequently sound like a Green Day audition (especially on the acoustic Pandemonium), Stars Are Aligned and I’ve Never Been To Ohio marry balls-to-the-wall fury with intellectual pensiveness. Petals’ strengths are in its under-complication. Multi-layered guitars provide briefly hypnotic drone-rock elements without dominating or robbing the likes of Candyman their melody or pop sensibility. Could this be the start of shoegazing with a smile?