The Darling Buds debuted a year too late for C86 Formed in Caerleon, Wales, in 1986, The Darling Buds quickly found an enthusiastic hometown audience. Taking their cues from the C86 scene, The Beatles, ‘60s pop and the post-punk DIY scene, and released their last album just before the U.K. press threw down the Britpop gauntlet. In a way, the Welsh band helped build all but the joints connecting NME’s pivotal cassette compilation to the Union Jack-waving movement that took hold in opposition to stateside grunge. They were grouped instead with a few peers by a journalistic neologism so frivolous — based on the hair color shared by singer/songwriter Andrea Lewis and her fellow frontwomen — that it isn’t mentioned in the sleeve notes of “Killing for Love”.
As demonstrated by this five-disc box, the Darling Buds were simply among the sharpest guitar-pop bands of their time. From 1987 through 1992, they put forward a clutch of singles and three albums brimming with a wide variety of sweet and sour love songs performed with ebullience to spare and a bit of attitude. Contrary to their name and melodic sensibility, they weren’t lightweight. The guitars were sometimes as dirty and cutting as those of the Jesus and Mary Chain and many Seattle bands, and Lewis’ voice rang through them as clear as a bell. Moreover, Lewis could issue a stern ultimatum and was bold enough to sing poetically about onanistic pleasure on an album titled “Erotica”, released weeks before Madonna’s like-named LP.
“Killing for Love” is a comprehensive and neatly organized anthology. Its first disc is based around the Darling Buds’ self-released first 7″ and two subsequent singles for the Native label. This indie phase was highlighted by early support from BBC DJ John Peel, for whom the band would record three sessions (unfortunately not included) before and after “Shame on You” landed on his Festive Fifty for 1988.
The second, third, and fourth discs respectively present “Pop Said…, Crawdaddy“, and “Erotica“, the band’s Sony-distributed LPs, as expanded editions filled out with B-sides and alternate versions. Scattered across those three discs are seven charting U.K. singles including the super-charged Top 40 entry “Hit the Ground,” followed by identity-retaining crossover dance singles “Tiny Machine” and “Crystal Clear,” and the driving “Sure Thing.”
Most of the previously unreleased material that comprises the fifth disc (and part of the first) is intriguing. It goes all the way back to an early three-song demo recorded by Mekons Jon Langford and Robert Worby to post-“Erotica” demos produced by the E Street Band’s Roy Bittan. Finishing off the final disc is the whole of “Evergreen”, an inspired 2017 EP with Lewis backed by new Buds.
Packed with previously unheard recordings and photographs from the band’s own private archive; and accompanied by an insightful scene setting essay from Lewis Wilson, “Killing For Love” brings together thirty years of friendship and song writing.
The Fat Angel Sings 