The Yellow Darts

HT Boyd's Review:

If The Yellow Darts did one thing right it’s nostalgia. This is not cheap nostalgia either. It’s top shelf. Their album is not here to deliver stale Star Wars references or ‘hey, remember when’ parody songs. No, this is original content reminiscent of another, better, time and all that weirdo stuff that used to come on fuzzy midnight television after mom and dad went to bed. It evokes that late nineties/early aughts boyishness found in They Might Be Giants, Homestar Runner and MST3K.

It’s funny. It’s sweet. It’s just as sincere as it is unabashedly weird.

I love everything about this album’s tone, it’s like one snickering conversation over a three A.M. six-pack of cheap beer. It’s overbrimming, it’s chatty and charmingly ADHD. So much music feels like it’s screaming at me, but this album is fully involved in a conversation with itself; I’m just lucky to be in attendance. Part of this feeling is owed to the A to B rhyme scheme of the Ben songs changing over to the Dan songs. They’re distinct from one another and they almost seem to ‘talk’. You would think this to be a detriment in a standard music project, but, here, it somehow works.

It’s a musical My Dinner With Andre, only this is a meal between David Byrne and John Darnielle, written for the screen by the writers room for the fourth season of the Simpsons.

Ben definitely delivers the most radio friendly moments on the album. Those easy to access hooks and lovely layered harmonies. The warm, the fuzzy, the poppy moments you could frame on your wall. Ben can be silly when he needs to be, but his heart is audible on his sleeve; happy, sad or unsure, we’re more familiar with these emotions. Ben’s lyrics detail a search for self-identity and confidence in said identity. See ‘Harmonize In Yourself’ which, despite it’s poppy self-help lyrics has lines hinting at overcoming habits of self-sabotage. Consider ‘Fragment’ and ‘Shapeshifter’ whose lyrics (even titles) evoke a sense of an incomplete part longing for (non-romantic) completion.

At its worst moments, it feels like the Ben pieces are trying to guide the conversation into something more serious, but Dan just wants to keep riffing. This can cause a whiplash, like I’m changing channels between a comedy episode of the X-files and a somehow somber Malcolm In The Middle. I won’t complain though, because I’m interested in both.
Dan’s heart is not on his sleeve, its hidden somewhere else, maybe on the inside an old dirty sock. Dan songs are more experimental musically, and lyrically, they veer off into some completely bananas directions; clones in Havana, pirates, Frankenstines. An unappreciative listener might mistake Dan’s lyrics as lol randum penguin, but that’s watching the gift wrap without opening up the box.

While Ben’s songs are searching for identity, Dan is far more cynical. His mind is on death and even worse, the banal, boring, dull corporate world that comes before it (Consider the cycle Mr. Michaels is trying to escape from or all those references to failed states). Dan’s musings on sci-fi, political oddities and horror are a vague costume for a fear that an identity is unattainable in our American dystopia. The thing Ben is trying so hard to find, Dan says, is finitely unfindable in the world as it is today. See ‘Average Days’, Dan’s song without the gift wrap. It’s ‘Once In a Lifetime’ if it was written by “They Might Be Giants”, and then injected with the perspective of the post 2016 doom mindset.

Of course, there’s a third voice in this conversation. And that’s Ethan. Ethan deserves a chalice full of pizza for his uncanny ability to make music “funny”. It’s no small skill, your average idiot would just do “bad on purpose” but here— He’s telling his own weird jokes, he’s playing his own weird late night TV characters, but he’s doing it with a thousand instruments and timing changes. Ethan brought something stylish and thoughtful to the party. He’s left not one thing half-baked even when the mood of a song is intentionally corny.

I walk away from this album wishing there were more projects like it, but at the same time, I’m happy this is as unique as it is. This album feels like all the giggling conversations from that post childhood childhood. That ‘beery’ place between cartoons and girls, when you’re not quite sure who you are, and you’re not quite sure if you’re hopeful or sh*t-your-pants afraid about becoming a true and true adult.

Yes, It’s funny, and like anything that’s really funny, it’s sad when you look too close.

Our cover art is a photo of this incredible diorama created by Hannah Garner. So much cool detail in this piece, Dan's cat Korin seemed to like it too.

Behind the scenes of Sunday Monster Matinee circa October 2019.

The new album is out now on all streaming platforms

In our first release since 2009, we're so proud to bring you Sunday Monster Matinee! Available on all major streaming services now.

https://open.spotify.com/album/5i6x3JSryKtYAUZQs0hG8l?si=HrFIQVv1T9SC5YkiXHYOZQ

Sunday Monster Matinee The Yellow Darts · Album · 2021 · 12 songs.

Big News y'all, stay tuned