Dark Dark Dark / Nona Marie Invie

Dark Dark Dark / Nona Marie Invie

Something Was There

Dark Dark Dark

Dark Dark Dark’s rich history is punctuated by house shows and train hopping, touring as support for The National in Portugal, playing both The National and TV On The Radio’s ATP Festivals, and years of indefatigable coast-to-coast U.S. touring. It’s a history rich with recordings, including a pair of celebrated full-lengths produced by Tom Herbers (Low, The Cactus Blossoms), three EPs, and a feature film score. Now, ten years later—surprise—a new 10-inch single. In 2013, when Dark Dark Dark released the What I Needed EP, anyone might have guessed it was a bridge between the previous year’s lauded album Who Needs Who and the next big venture. The band had closed out 2012 as part of Australia's touring Harvest Festival, during which they stepped up to fill an unexpectedly vacant slot much later in the day, enchanting thousands of unsuspecting festival-goers. Alas, after that, the band went silent. The release of these new songs is certainly delightful and perhaps startling, as is the promise of more solo work from singer Nona Marie Invie. On the gorgeous and stately “Didn’t I Try,” Invie’s voice is elegant as ever, couched in the familiar sounds of Marshall LaCount’s distorted banjo and Mark Trecka’s roiling drums. The loping and haunted “Something Was There” follows—a staple of Dark Dark Dark’s live sets in the last year of their touring. Fans of contemporaries Weyes Blood (of which DDD multi-instrumentalist Walt McClements is now a full-time member) and Angel Olsen (in whose live and studio band...