Dark Mean was one of the first bands to make it onto the “Find of The Week” feature almost two years ago when this website was in its infancy and we were still getting our feet wet with this whole “blogging” thing. At that time Dark Mean had something that one might loosely be able to call a “website” and there was a MySpace page. Quite a bit has changed for this Ontariorian (something tells me that’s not right) trio. There’s now a website that anyone would be happy to have, a debut, self titled, full length album and a video for the lead single “Happy Banjo”.
I must say that I’m happy that with all the other changes that the band has had over the last two years their sound is still basically the same. In fact, 6 of the 11 tracks on the new album are from their two early EP’s Frankencottage and Music Box. This is usually a good sign that the band has not made any drastic changes to their sound. For the most part the tracks still tend to stay in the lower decibel ranges and rarely get riled beyond what you hear during the closing half of “Lullaby”. The band still makes great use of a full range of musical genres while never sounding like they’ve journeyed out of their realm of ability.
Don’t let the track name dissuade you, we’re not talking Deliverance type banjo here.
