Darwin Deez: Darwin Deez | CD review

There's a wonderful little EP lurking inside the debut album from DIY pop wannabe Darwin Deez. Take Constellations, Radar Detector, DNA and Bad Day, and you'd have a delightful 10-minute primer that would whet your appetite and leave you wondering what else the New York-based Deez might be capable of. Unfortunately, you get the answer over the course of the album: not a whole lot. Every song cleaves to a format of clipped guitar chords and drawled vocals laid over electronic percussion. It's like listening to demos by a hippy Strokes, but without the ambition and discipline of that band's debut album. The songs that succeed do so because they vary the format: Constellations and Radar Detector toss unexpected chord changes, memorable hooks, snaking guitar lines underneath the clipped lead; Bad Day ditches the lyrical, open-mouthed stargazing for a little mild spite. Here's an album for which individual track downloads were invented.