If John Hughes and John Carpenter made a movie together, [DARYL] might just be the soundtrack.
Greeting the U.S. and Japan with eclectic albums since 1999, Dallas-based synth-punk rock band [DARYL] has honed their 1980’s music and cinema-inspired sound for not one, but two jointed conceptual albums — The Wasted Casualties and I Dream Alone — meant to discern the band’s genre into two distinct entities. Released today via Idol Records, the project was produced and mixed by Grammy Award-winner Stuart Sikes (White Stripes, Cat Power).
The two albums contrast the lyrical with the angst, pop with the punk, and drive with the delicate. Conceptually, the albums’ theme is a continuation of the graphic novel, Slaves For Gods, created by lead singer and songwriter Dylan Silvers’ multimedia art project These Machines Are Winning. The Wasted Casualties story takes place in 1982 in Kingman, Arizona, as two rival gangs plan to thrash each other at the homecoming dance. Plans changed after they realized a satanic cult had already taken over Kingman High. ”The Final Process” had begun. The two rival gang leaders realize they have to work together to survive the night.
The I Dream Alone story takes place that same year, where a teenage girl named Jenny 001 and a computer who identifies as Daryl travel through time and space to Kingman to save what can not be saved. During their journey, Jenny spends most of her time with Daryl learning about The Tsar Bomba and watching 80s movies hoping to learn more about earth’s war machines.
One of two title tracks, “The Wasted Casualties” grabs the mic with bitcrushed synth that sounds like it’s been transported right from the arcade game featured in the song’s music video counterpart. Stopping percussion and passionate vocals mark the chorus, with Silvers charging the instrumentation with aching but energizing emotion.
Released as a single on September 6th, “Kimmy,” from The Wasted Casualties LP, takes the rebellious, pop-punk feel reminiscent of Jimmy Eat World and places it over a skate park-visual music video, matching the beautiful recklessness that dawns over their genre to the fun, adolescent rebellion associated with it. Ramping up with droning guitar picks and placing clever lyricism over jiving bass lines, “Kimmy” is the ultimate resurgence of classic pop-punk rock.
With hints of disco and interlaced imagery, “Master Control” of I Dream Alone shifts the soundscape to one of intricate daintiness painted with openness and raw emotion. Feminine vocals paint the vivid picture of intrusive thoughts and their work on the mind. “There’s something crawling on my mind,” she sings.
The second of the two title tracks, “I Dream Alone,” has an experimental 80s synth punk spin, with undertones of perseverance and ambitious goals. Airy vocals uplift wise lyricism as percussion drives the song with ambient synth, and the desert music video resembles the soundscape’s expansiveness as two masked wanderers gaze at the stars throughout their travels.
Consisting of Silvers, David Wilson, Michael Lamm, Jeff Parker, Chadwick Ferman, Beau Wagener, Matt Pittman, and Mike Danger, [DARYL] combined to form their 8-piece group in 2018 after 18 years of the band touring, performing, and operating in various ways. Dallas’s Homegrown Festival ignited their bond and inspired them to create their dual albums.
Producing tasteful audio visuals for the band, Nuclear War Skills is a project that is a combination of musicians, filmmakers, comic artists, and political activists, created and co-founded by Silvers. The multimedia collective has been making graphic novels, records, hosting political festivals, and humanitarian events since 2012.
One of those political festivals he helped curate was Dallas’s Buffalo Tree Festival, which was created to inspire a movement where musicians and artists share their voices and show their support for candidates that will stand up for civil rights, our environment, racial equality, gun control, and more.
Regarding what Silvers hopes these albums achieve, he states, “I get so much emotion and feeling from 80’s music and movies. I suppose it’s a childhood thing with warm memories, but some that are also really dark. I take from this concept of fictional story telling mixed with real life pain and blend them together. I HOPE the listeners might feel something familiar to them. A place in time that could be present, or it could be decades ago. It could be painful or a happy memory.”
As [DARYL] re-enters the scene they’ve so long been a part of after stepping back to master their craft for The Wasted Casualties and I Dream Alone, they dabble in a pool of underlying genres and emotions, creating a sound unique to its kind and refreshing to the times.
