I consider The Sadies one of the best working bands around today. Unfortunately, their recorded output has rarely lived up to their greatness. As a live band, few can touch them. In the studio they frequently fall short. While the majority of their studio albums are quite good, if you asked me to recommend a Sadies studio album, I’d be stumped. None of them seem to do the band justice. I’d heard some very good things about Darker Circles and I had high hopes that this album would be the one to finally realize their greatness. It’s not. With a few exceptions, this is a typical Sadies album, which is to say very good, but never great.

The album opens with its strongest track, “Another Year Again,” which is a unique blend of surf, country and straight-ahead rock. It’s not surprising how quickly the song shifts between genres (The Sadies do this all the time). What is surprising though is how seamless it is. The final third of the song, where the entire band rocks out, comes out of nowhere, but somehow it feels natural and appropriate. Unfortunately, nothing else on this album is as dynamic or exciting as “Another Year Again.” “Cut Corners” is a much more relaxed and stable song. On its own it isn’t a mellow song—the Good Brothers make sure of that with their dueling guitar solos—but in the context of the two songs that bookend it, the track takes on a laid back feel.

“Another Day Again” is the song at the other end, and those who’ve listened to The Sadies live album, In Concert Volume One, should recognize it, despite the song being presented here in a somewhat different form. The melody is basically intact, but this studio version lacks some of the live version’s tension and chaotic energy. However, “Another Day Again” is one of The Sadies stronger forays into psych-rock. It’s not quite up there with “Translucent Sparrow” or “Of Our Land,” but it situates The Sadies among the true successors to bands like The Byrds, Love and The 13th Floor Elevators.

Increasingly, The Sadies sound less comfortable as a country band. At just under five minutes, “Tell Her What I Said” is perhaps the longest studio track the band has released so far. When a mandolin joins the mix just past the half-way mark, it becomes the first song to alter the dreamy guitar-driven sound of the album. While the mandolin is a nice touch, it ends up sounding out of place. The band extends into even dreamier territory with “The Quiet One,” a song that toes the line between dreamy and dreary. Gary Louris produced both this album and New Seasons, and he favors a rich, encompassing guitar-sound. As a result, songs have a hard time standing out. This is less of a problem on Darker Circles than on New Seasons, but it is still present.

“Postcards” is probably the most straight-forward country song on here; however, it feels inconsequential coming halfway through the album. “Whispering Circles” returns us to the amorphous production style that dominates the album, and that’s truly a shame. This is a song that could have benefited from greater definition. Instead, Travis Good’s vocals are buried under vibraphone and washy guitars. “Idle Tomorrow” sounds more substantial with acoustic guitars favored over electric, but, unfortunately, the song is not very strong.

“Choosing to Fly” shows just how far the band has come from its country origins. Here, the Good brothers sing together accompanied by only banjo, acoustic guitar and fiddle. It’s a good song with a strong melody. But the stripped down instrumentation and spare production sounds anachronistic in the context of the rest of this album. There was a time when instrumentation like this would be unremarkable on a Sadies album. Apparently, those days are gone.

“10 More Songs” also shows how the band has changed over the last decade. It is the only instrumental track on the album, and for the most part it feels unessential. While I’ve been happy to see The Sadies grow as songwriters, I miss the days when surf and country instrumentals would be placed between songs of other disparate genres. Here, the instrumental track feels tacked on and undefined. Just a few years ago The Sadies released an entire album of instrumentals, Tales of the Rat Fink, so I know they still have it in them. It’s been wonderful watching The Sadies grow into one of the best psychedelic rock bands of our time, but they’d do well to play to their strengths a little more often.

Track List:
1. Another Year Again
2. Cut Corners
3. Another Day Again
4. Tell Her What I said
5. The Quiet One
6. Postcards
7. Whispering Circles
8. Idle Tomorrows
9. Choosing to Fly
10. Violet and Jeffrey Lee
11. 10 More Songs