2009. I think I was still in the throes of grief as well as being continually sleep-deprived having lost my mother and been blessed with the birth of my child just over a year previously. I’d left one awful full-time job I’d been in for a year for another one that I ended up leaving around a year later. I was, as the saying goes, a hot mess.
Music was one thing that helped me during that period. A lot of what I was listening to sounded like the grief felt inside me. Mostly outside my main musical interests and all minor key with glimmers of something you might describe as hope. To this day there are albums that I can listen to and instantly be transported deep into that grief, which I don’t shy away from. There were happy and sad times, good and bad in extremes. They were a lifetime ago and still as raw as they felt then.
Music, I think, became a thing to blot out the noise in my head. So I’d trawl MySpace and mp3 blogs and throw on anything and everything. In some ways it was a great musical education into genres I’d likely have avoided or skirted around. Dark Mean would not have been on my radar, but I think there were probably adjacent enough to bands like Frightened Rabbit who were a firm favourite back then that they appealed. Indie-pop alt-country from Canada. Sounded like it was worth a few minutes of my time. Four songs and about 17 minutes in total. Sold.
I wasn’t really ready for the effect these simple lo-fi songs would have on me. They sound a little sad but also aren’t. They offered me a way out of the mire that grief had created. They put a slight smile on my face, one that had been lacking.
Four songs. Enough to get to know a band but not so many that you’ve time to be dulled by hearing them more than once. EPs need to showcase what a band is but have enough of a hook that you’ll play all the tracks on it. There is no room for bloat, for fluff or for duffers. EPs offer no forgiveness if you don’t have four tracks that match one another for catchiness or memorability. They’re the gateway to determining if you’re creating fans of your music or announcing that you’re not a band worth my consideration. Dark Mean can be forgiven the name, a ‘Spoonerism’ of the singer’s name, by delivering four songs of equal quality, all with the hook, the line but no sinkers.
I have a soft spot for songs that start with a decent drum beat. Happy Banjo is such a track. In fact, the drums are quite a driving rhythm so the plucky banjo that adds the texture to the song is surprising. Then comes acoustic guitar and harmonised vocals. Pedal steel completes the opening 90 seconds. There’s horns, too, which speak to the time in which this was made. The phrasing of the lyrics captured me, as did the melody with its leaps across the key in ways that caught me out and were unexpected. There’s a sparseness in the sense that the song has everything that’s required and no more.
And so I was thinking that the rest of the tracks would continue in this vein. Yet, the second track, Frankencottage, from which the EP takes its name has more of an electronica feel, with intricate basslines weaving amongst the guitar riffs. Keyboards add the aural umami, leaving the lyrics to sit in their more traditional verse-chorus-verse structure. Then, as you’ll hear, is the bridge that to me owes a fair bit to fellow Canadians, The Long Winters. This opens up a galloping rhythm that carries the listener towards the song’s finale. Where many bands might have faded out here, Dark Mean cut the cord. That’s it, done.
Lullaby, in contrast, returns to the simple banjo-plucked melody of the opening track. The lyrics feel more present here than on other tracks as it’s a quieter track with picked guitar and cymbal rolls bringing the texture. The words meant a lot to me as I was so tired, but also reminded me of many Glastonbury festivals with friends and the endless refrain on the Sunday night of ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead!” after days of naps and near psychosis from lack of sleep and recreational drugs. Like 2009, we survived those days. I also survived the grief. Somehow.
Which leaves the final song, China, to end this four-track EP. Piano leads here, with a distinct drum pattern hitting beats one and two, sometimes four. It’s these shifts that keep the ear interested, that lift this above the standard lo-fi indie so reminiscent of that year. The words float, a repeated refrain that becomes more instrument than lyrical. It’s a layer to catch your attention.
And then, well then it’s over. It hasn’t outstayed its welcome. In fact, I found that it made itself inviting and has become over the years since a visitor I am always happy to hear from.
The band dropped away a little following the release of their debut album, which came from the three main EPs they released (of which Frankencottage was the first) reworked and polished a little here and there. They arrived back in 2024 but were a changed band. A new sound. A different approach. One that didn’t quite hit me the same way. Perhaps, as I wasn’t grieving, Dark Mean were meant for a specific time in my life, a guide of sorts. Something that I can return to so that I’m reminded that these are episodes that one must endure, that form a huge part of who I am and yet you’d never have known had I not just told you.
I’m thankful for those four songs, thankful that I discovered them just when I needed to. That they remain as a doorway to that time. It’s what music does.
Dark Mean were never signed to a label. The EPs and their only album were all self-released. And, you know what, that’s okay. Music doesn’t need to appeal to the masses. It can change one person’s life and like all and any art, that’s what it’s about. This EP changed mine. Perhaps it’ll change yours?