http://www.lmnop.com/2009-April-LMNOP-Reviews.html#anchor39831

Here is the review:

Darling - Burned by the Sun (CD EP, Cardboard Sangria, Pop)
Burned by the Sun is a really good EP. What makes an EP a really good EP? It is one that makes you say, "Shit...why wasn't this goddamn thing a full-length...???!" And yup, that's the exact and precise reaction we had to this cool little seven track disc from the three guys who call themselves Darling. The press release that accompanied this disc compared the band's music to a cross between Built To Spill and Television. That's pretty close...but we would replace Built To Spill with The Kinks. Some of the songs have decidedly Ray Davies-esque melodies and the lead vocals are particularly similar sounding. But as we played this disc over and over again...we found that the more familiar it became the less and less it sounded like any other bands. This is a band with a nifty and unique approach to making infectious pop music. We have fallen in love with smart tracks like "We Are Strong," "We'll Try," "Heads On" (our favorite), and "Fire Keeps Lit." Smart and vibrant. Recommended. (Rating: 5++)

The deli has nominated us for april band of the month. Take one second and vote for us.

http://www.thedelimagazine.com/chicago/snacks.php

We're getting fancy over in cardboard sangria headquarters. You can download all the songs from our last album and come April 7th you can download those from the new album.

Much to my surprise I found that we were in the top 20 indi-pop bands in chicago based on the deli chicago reader poll. For more info go here: http://www.thedelimagazine.com/chicago/

We recorded in the Fall and mixed mastered over the holidays. We have officially sent the cd to the plant for production. Look forward to a official record release around 7, 2009. Look forward to new songs on our myspace even sooner.

Bootleg recently interviewed darling in June. Bootleg magazine is in our top friends so feel few to peruse the virtual pages of their magazine. Here is the interview:

Darling is a modern rock trio from Chicago and also run a label, Cardboard Sangria. Their recent release Ground is Sound is a mini-epic, a soft opera in its own way. The band's sound is large in scope, doing so with ambient sounds, repetitive gentle guitar strumming and soaring, airy vocals. The band shifts and changes, molding organically with each addition to the fold. We spoke with Jeff Schneider, vocalist and guitarist for Darling.


Who is Darling and how long has this set of band members been together?

The current lineup is Jeff Schneider, Nick Voss, and Don Ogilvie. This lineup has been kicking since the winter of 2005. Don took a break for a year (his wife had a baby) but is now back with darling. Nick and I have been playing in Darling since 2004.

What's the main difference between Darling in 2008 compared to 2003, when the band started?

Darling was much younger in 2003 and was more drum machine/synth based. Although less energetic, there is a certain air of time which we'll never be able to reclaim in these early recordings. Much of the early ambience was attributed to Jason Munchoff who left the band in 2005 to start The Kinzie House. Nowadays Darling has a full kit drummer to match the delayed guitar and sweeping bass lines that have inlayed into Darling's current
recordings. To put this morphogenesis into one word, it would have to be "energy".

Has Darling always been a trio?

Darling has moved in and out of being a trio since it started in 2003. There is something very calming about a three piece power trio that requires a cohesive set of ideas. We also like having auxiliary members to fill the sound out a bit and this has proven beneficial and cacophonous at times. It's been natural for Darling to go in and out of these larger and smaller outfits and the writing style has ebbed and flowed with its framework. The current lineup has Donnie using a Roland Drum pad attached to a DE7 Ibanez delay pedal for an added soundscape. It's alluring when you can get more than expected out of three members. I remember fondly watching old bands like Nirvana and new bands like Animal Collective really utilize each member to an added capacity for an orchestrated masterpiece of composition. Darling is currently in a three-piece stage and will most likely move into a larger outfit in the future. It is very comfortable to go into practice with three people as its much easier to write when there are less cooks in the kitchen.

How's Chicago going these days? Has Darling always been based in Chicago?

I love Chicago and consider it the coolest city in the world. I have told that to friends in Europe who have scoffed at me but it has an incredible music scene, a beach, and the summer/winter lifestyle dichotomy which drives you into a manic depressive "work" and "play" schematic to life. It's very fun as a band to come out of the winter recharged and just as easily recluse back into the winter's entrapment. I have no plans on ever leaving Chicago.

Did you start Cardboard Sangria? What type of bands are you looking for to be on your label?

Cardboard Sangria was started by Dan Schneider and Gary Pyskacek from the now defunct Hummingbiird (formally The Pedal Steel Transmission). They both have their own bands The Singleman Affair and the Tiger Trio respectively. Cardboard Sangria is very family based and usually spawns from friends who start bands.

For example, Rock Falls is a girl from the 3rd floor of my apartment in Logan Square. Last year Darling had member Dave Luzeniecki who lived on the second floor of this same building. This organic nature of recruiting bands/band members is integral to Cardboard Sangria's existence and is essential to its ability to self-promote. We have one official release on Cardboard Sangria. We went into the studio at the beginning of this year and plan to put out a full length and an EP by the end of the summer. I think the lack of release of official
releases stems from our interest in just giving our music away for free at shows.

The block print on "Ground is Sound" is cool. Who is the art by?

My fiancée Laurel Anderson does all the artwork for darling. The cover of Ground is Sound is a silkscreen and is the major medium for Darling's flyers and album art. Go to
myspace.com/darlingchicago to see more of her designs. It's great to be able to make art with someone you live with and has been a consistent theme to Darling since day one. Outside of Darling Laurel designs silkscreen flats and t-shirts and has art shows about once a year.

If you were going to add a cover song to your set, what would it be and why?

Funny you ask about a cover. We usually don't do covers but recently Gary Pyskacek asked us to include a song for Cardboard Sangria's submission to the Rock for Kids compilation. We included the song 'I Go to Pieces' written by Del Shannon and made famous by Peter and Gordon. It is one of my father's favorite songs. My brother and Dad helped mold my musical taste and occasionally I look back to songs I liked growing up and have thought to myself, "maybe this one would sound good with some delay and maybe a tribal floor tom beat."

Interview by Josh Spilker

Hey,
There was a show on ABC on Sunday night which featured clips of darling playing at the bottom lounge. Go here to see it: www.190north.com. Then go to watch 190 North. Then click on the right, Chicago's newest rock spots for a chance to see darling playing at the the bottom lounge.

Hailing from Chicago, Darling's Ground is Sound is a confessional mini-epic, a quiet opera in its own right that builds and folds onto itself all through the disc's seven songs. Large in its scope, much in the way Smashing Pumpkins does with waves of abrasive guitar melodies and heavy drumming, Darling does so with ambient sounds, repetitive, gentle guitar strumming and somewhat minimal coarse tribal drumming. The result is a large blanket of sound constructed primarily from gentle and melodic playing.

Jeff Schneider's airy vocals blend in easily with this self-possessed style of playing. 'Keyholes' is a splendid example, mixing acoustic guitar, tambourine and background ambiance with his sweet and sometimes nasal vocals.

'Turning Gray', perhaps the album's stellar song, blurs the line between the past and the modern past, where what is old is given a new coat of paint. The song is simple, echoing pre-fame INXS and muted Wilco tracks. Its counterpart, 'Pulling Down,' musically pulls the insides out, a song pulling at the heartstrings. Like something played for an emotionally defining scene in a film, it has all the right ingredients; somber guitar, gentle sonic ambiance and fuzzed out guitar strums that induces reflection. Schneider's haunting vocals pull the song from sadness to optimism, What's that pulling down on me/Isn't that life/Isn't that life pushing me down/You got to get back up.

Each track on the album is less than single songs each, instead, working as pieces of a much larger puzzle. Of the seven tracks, each plays like a different mood although sonically very connected. Ground is Sound is beautifully frantic, a drawn out eruption of restrained emotion, like a long dream laced with tension.

It feels deliberately imperfect, brimming with jangling raw and echoing guitar coupled with bass and drums that ebb and flow. Everything eschews typical song (or album) structure leaving the listener with a rash of emotional resonance.

Darling's music is devoid of bombast and raw power for the sake of attention. That would be too easy and betray the idea that less is more is just as powerful. Ground is Sound is special in that its emotionality is far superior to any speaker turned to full capacity to affect a listener.

Bootleg is a magazine out of North Carolina and here is their myspace page:
  http://www.myspace.com/avenuemagazinepresents