[b]Review:[/b]
The four guys of Darlingside write lyrics. They also play instruments. But that’s not what you’ll notice about them. Rather it’s the quartet’s exquisite harmonies, so immaculately crafted, arranged and performed, that nearly everything else about the group’s alt-folk – emphasis on folk – is secondary. 
The band’s blueprint of lush, luxurious vocals, mostly percussion-free pastoral calm and general dreaminess was established, after a few warm-up releases, on 2015’s sumptuous Birds Say. Its 2017 follow-up doubles down on that successful design, further spotlighting their uncanny singing abilities. Unabashed obvious influences from early Simon & Garfunkel, the Everly Brothers and the Beach Boys still reign supreme but the foursome stretch their boundaries to include ghostly classical chorale echoes, too, as in the lovely, floating “Lindisfarne.”