Premiere: Darrin James Band | “The Lovely Ugly Truth”

Send in the folk (clowns?). Brooklyn’s Darrin James Band just sent over “The Lovely Ugly Truth,” the title track off their recently released sophomore album The Lovely Ugly. In 2009, it is hard to give great singer songwriters the attention they deserve – we receive so many submissions from guys with acoustic guitars, that it is sometimes easier to just talk about the ones that the big name blogs give the most press (I’m looking at you, Kurt Vile…I see you over there, smugly profiting off your questionably deserved hype).

But “The Lovely Ugly Truth” is such an enjoyable track: raucous, bluesy, and obviously classic, a composite piece of “rock and roll.” James has a such smokey gruff voice that it seems it would have been a rejection of his own birthright not to sing the blues. James isn’t going to invent any new genres, or get called a sonic pioneer, but with a song this genuine and immediate, who cares?

Darrin James Band – “The Lovely Ugly Truth”

by Max Sebela