There's a spare and honest emotion to most all of what The Darling Downs do. Kim Salmon's considered guitar or banjo playing entwining itself around Ron Peno's quiet-keen-to-coyote-baying appear quite a way from better known credits such as their respective Scientists and Died Pretty work, but the quality control – and even some of the influences – are hereabouts.
On their third album, over a sporadic eight-year existence among their other guises and projects, the gospel-flecked Appalachian purity is still present, but with a few other tangents sometimes sneaking through. Wish You Were Her is country, certainly, but perhaps not so much Nashville but more Dylan's Nashville Skyline in its awkward trot. Between The Forest And The Trees adds woody claps, clatters and Turtles harmonies to the basic ingredients, so it's almost a '60s hippie pop feeling abounding. While Forever Night might musically quote a couple of Christmas carols, but there's an undercurrent suggesting something darker than just the evening snow is laying heavy on the ground.
There's a few extra instrumental textures, but the very occasional piano from Julitha Ryan or the passing brushed percussion seem there more to highlight the spaces, than fill them. Thus, The Darling Downs remain at their most affecting when they are at their most plaintive: I Don't Care is Peno perfectly saying one thing while meaning the opposite, as Salmon's plucked guitar waits for him to exhale the next thought.
Even among the sadnesses there still seems to be a joy in what they're making. That can rarely be a bad thing.
