Across numerous social media platforms, the name of this Portland, Maine, artist eludes us. We must accept that Darksoft is sufficient, and that the plain, all-beige album cover will forever be both the most boring and intriguing artwork in our music collection.

However, the above sense of enigmatic works, for anything even remotely teetering on gregariousness might detract from the air of resignation, settling, and uneasy contentment that this album evokes.

Expressed via the track titles like It Is What It Is, Only Time Will Tell, There’s Always Something Going On, and Such Is Life, Beigeification is not the histrionic machinations of disaffection but more precisely a batch of limited and decidedly more subtle ‘Oh well’ vignettes delivered within a possible ‘I can handle it’ veneer, which is strangely heartening rather than obviously melancholic.

Of course, jangle-pop, with its discordant vibrancy, is not something that would normally be aligned with subdued resignation, but in the hands of this artist, it works perfectly.

Initially, the opening double salvo of It Is What It Is and Only Time Will Tell refuses to let the listener dwell on any potential malaise by augmenting the general dulcet tone with elongated, jangly introductions that are resonant with beauty. Of course both the intros are mere foils for the languid tracks they eventually become as Darksoft insists of tethering any exuberance with life’s reality.

The languid matter-of-fact essence eventually consumes the sound, with You Gotta Do What You Gotta Do and Whatever It Takes drifting into early 90s New Order guitar-pop territory, whereas the simply sublime standouts Stones Unturned and There Always Something Going On drift into Hibou-style jangly dream-pop with the slightest of gaze inflections.

The first release of 2023 with any “year-end best of’s” potential has already arrived !

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