It’s difficult for me to explain why some guitar-based indie rock works, and some just doesn’t. There’s a lot of it out there. It’s either fantastic, or completely boring. And I think a lot of it has to do with where the band comes from. For example, earlier this week I saw a guitar-based indie band from Stillwater, Oklahoma and I was won over by their slanted take on the familiar style (I may be alone in this). There’s just something about weirdos from Oklahoma (see also: Flaming Lips, Evangelicals) making off-kilter, intriguing music. Having never been to Oklahoma, I’m guessing there’s little to do there, so weirdness has a way of creeping into the music in order to generate some excitement. And there’s little to compare yourself with when you try to do something outside of the box. Then last night I saw a guitar-based band from L.A. and it was totally dull. I’m not sure I could say why; it just seemed absolutely generic, like they took to heart their city’s Hollywood ways of test marketing and demographics to make music that appealed to as many people as possible. In other words, blandly accessible and totally uninteresting.

Which brings me to the Darcys, a group of Torontonians who escaped to Halifax, Nova Scotia—or maybe it’s the other way around. Either way, the relative isolation of Nova Scotia has given them the perspective needed to make their familiar brand of melodic, reverby, guitar-based indie rock seem fresh and new. I’m reminded of another band from similar extremes of Canada, the Novaks from St. John’s, Newfoundland, who make music that should seem totally boring: bar band Tom Petty ripoffs that sound like something a suburban mama would get down to at quarter-beer night. But I think the Novaks, for some reason, are totally great—and so are the Darcys.

Their album, Endless Water, starts with the isolated handclaps and unison vocals of “Strange Fits,” and moves to heights of grandeur in “We Twin Bruises.” Meanwhile, “When We Were a Wilderness” bridges the gap between nonchalance and longing, with circular guitar trills building on top of a half-finished guitar riff and solo pulses from the bass, before moving into a loose, meandering jam. Some of the dancier tunes don’t quite work as well, like “I’m a Ship” which navigates a familiar disco-rock course. But when the band stretches out on the “Where Are Your Daughters/No More Love Songs/Endless Water” triptych, which features some Midlake-esque harmony vocals and some French lyrics, they capture a sense of history, space, and loss. And “Subsequent Ghosts” is beautiful and slow, what they would have called a power ballad twenty years ago, but never falls into the trap of overkill or becomes guilty of sounding like Coldplay. It’s just a little too weird, and raw. Thank god.

If anything, though, the album can at times seem a little anonymous, as if the band’s identity is afraid to assert itself through the delicately alluring music they’ve created. A little more personality wouldn’t hurt. And it’s a tad overinflated, too—the “Untitled (Bedroom Beats)” interlude is totally pointless. But the majority of the music on the record is gracefully, subtly wonderful, bringing to mind chilly weather and vast areas of open water. It knows the importance of warm clothing and shared body warmth. It recognizes the harsh beauty—not only in one’s natural surroundings, wherever they may be—but in new, unexplored emotions, which might be the most terrifying and exhilarating sort of frontier.

MP3:
The Darcys - I’ve Been Sleeping
The Darcys - We Twin Bruises

Endless Water is available at CD Baby and at iTunes.