From the sun-baked expanse of Phoenix comes the deliciously umbral debut LP from Some Days Are Darker, a gothic romance rendered with the fatal attraction of noir cinema and emblematic of the high-contrast coexistence of darkness and light.

While supported by regular players, Some Days Are Darker is essentially a solo project, conjuring into words and music songwriter Lear Mason’s innermost emotions with a level of vulnerability unlike any of his earlier metalcore projects but equally intense. The result is mature and nuanced, drawing a great deal of inspiration from pioneering alternative bands like Depeche Mode and Placebo but foregoing those stadium-sized sounds in favor of an exquisitely produced presentation that feels more akin to the intimacy of a private, late-night confession.

Companionship, or the lack thereof, is a central theme across the album’s track list; a desire for meaningful connection as armor against the terrifying vacuum of loneliness. Some Days Are Darker embraces this thematic commonality, celebrating the romance of companionship in a manner that allows the entirety of existence to fall away for a moment, a lifetime, an eternity entwined in the arms of a lover. Much like Jim Jarmusch’s modern noir Only Lovers Left Alive, Some Days Are Darker inhabits a world that exists entirely within the shadows of the night and anchors its narrative on the orbiting oscillations of two intrinsically connected entities grasping tightly to each other amidst the quietly crumbing foundations of the outside world. The bleakness of reality and the overwhelming weight of impending hopelessness is powerless in the face of true love, and although darkness may ultimately consume all in its path, Some Days Are Darker relishes in the fact that even after the passions of life have cooled two matched souls will continue, immortal as one within the void.

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