Darwin Deez

There's something truly fascinating about Brooklyn boy Darwin Deez. Not unlike prawn cocktail crisps or that slightly sweaty kid you sorta fancied in school, you’re not sure if it's socially acceptable to enjoy it – especially when it is a fusion '80s soul cheese and noughties skinny jean rock.
Looking like Freddie Mercury and Shirley Temple's lurve child and sounding like Albert Hammond Jr. and Beck's mutant offspring, Darwin Deez is a musical goofball and a pop abnormality.
What you find on Darwin Deez, however, is 35 minutes of unforgettable hooks, snaking guitar riffs and surly vocal flips, masterminded solely by the mustachioed crooner himself and recorded on a laptop in his bedroom, most likely in his underwear.
The difference between Darwin Deez and the rest of the oddball indie posse is that while our plucky chump spills his guts shamelessly, never holding back the whine in his vocal, a more self conscious musician would probably have stopped to think "I sound like an absolute tool" and plugged out the drum machine there and then.
Yep, Darwin can sound like a droning, introspective mess of a man. And yet, it's impossible to resist when (a) it's layered up with such woozy cosmic funk and (b) he's really only doing what hipsters do best – indulging himself, in loss on fuzzy lament 'DNA' ('No, I won't cry/ No, I will just pretend/ That you are mine/ That we are in love again'), in puppy love on the hip shaking 'Radar Detector' ('It's only been a week/ But I know that you are mine to keep') and most deliciously of all, in spite, on the maraca-driven 'Bad Day' ('Maybe you should wonder why your apartment is always so empty.')
There’s definitely filler on here ('Bed Space' and 'The Bomb Song') but the most part, Darwin Deez is a sneakily uplifting piece of Indie pie.