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Portland-based duo Strangled Darlings know how to kick plain old folk music up to the next level. Their Facebook page describes their style as “literary doom pop, punkgrass, graveyard stomp,” a description I find pretty accurate after familiarizing myself with the band’s catalog.

George Veech and Jessica Anderly got together to create their strange brew in 2009 after Veech moved from Virginia to the Pacific Northwest. Not only does East Coast meet West in this pairing, with an obvious Southeastern influence, but Anderly comes from a background of formal music training while Veech does not.

“I grew up playing violin,” says Anderly, who made the switch to bass and cello two years ago. “Because of my classical training, I found it really hard to be creative.” Anderly has a six-string electric cello that she plays bass lines on while standing up. Veech plays the mandolin, occasionally clapping it like a handheld drum kit.

Though other band members have come and gone, the duo has been working alone since fall and seems to be thriving.

“Naturally that’s led to its own songs,” says Veech. “We have a half finished album we just can’t seem to stop working on and hope to have it done by fall.”

This will be their fourth studio album. Their third release, 2012’s Red Yellow & Blue, had them on tour last summer and led to their meeting with Ivory Moose Production’s Michael Howard at a show with the Super Saturated Sugar Strings in Missoula, Montana.

“He got in touch with us and asked us if we wanted to come up here and we were like, yeah!” says Anderly. After playing mostly regional shows in recent months, the pair is looking forward to branching out and sharing their sound with the final piece of the West coast puzzle.

Now, about that sound—you have to recognize the beauty in things that are a little off to appreciate all that is great about Strangled Darlings. There’s a certain haunting mood to be picked from the discord and the straight up weird and creepy nature of the lyrics combined with Veech’s wild and varied vocal style.

Strangled Darlings have created a brand of swampy, darkly grooving, foot stomping music that is sometimes an odd contrast to the subject matter of their lyrics. While opening track “Snake and the Girl” tells a story of a man sorting through organized religion and coming to terms with his own brand of salvation, a song outlining the ill-fated love-affair between millionaire J. Howard Marshall and the gold-digging Anna Nicole Smith sends the Strangled Darlings off the rails in the best possible way.

In the song named after that millionaire, Veech howls:

All she wanted was peace,

All she wanted was love,

All she wanted was fame,

With a fist and a glove,

Anna Nicole, Anna Nicole, Anna Nicole,

Girl, your tits have grown cold

“The songs learn to express themselves, and some songs are just weird,” says Anderly. “There is an attempt to sort of document the world that we’re making up. We write songs about suburbia and Anna Nicole Smith; it’s our world and we just try to express it as honestly as we can.”

Strangled Darlings’ lyrics might reference anything from Bible verses to current events and pop culture, and the music itself is no less diverse.

The blending of the duo’s influences—Veech’s noticeable Tom Waits, Beastie Boys and Pogues and Anderly’s classical, electronica and rap—comes through in an array that is at once slightly confusing and exciting.

“The root of doing this is really trying to make a sound that’s original. What we’re really trying to do is present a new, different kind of folk music, where you have a story being told and encourages dancing and has a certain intensity like rock music but without the loudness. When you see a duo, a lot of times you don’t expect the kind of energy that you get with us,” says Veech.

At its core, sure, maybe Strangled Darlings really do create folk music. But let’s be honest, there’s much more to it than that. At times, it seems nearly impossible to recognize that folk is buried anywhere in there. While I initially leaned towards “Southern gothic hill music” or “dark Americana gypsy punk,” Veech and Anderly themselves paint a picture of what we might expect this weekend by offering up with the description, “a hip-shaking musical poetry of the American pageant.”
- Anchorage Press

Portland’s Strangled Darlings bring punk intensity to folk pop and completely bust the mold, creating smart, irreverent tunes using classic acoustic folk instrumentation paired with rough, impassioned vocals. The lyrics are more political and confrontational than the rather observational style that you hear often in folk. Think of it rather like the Clash with an indie Northwestern American aesthetic and acoustic instruments instead of Telecasters and Fender Precisions. George Veech and Jessica Anderly lead Strangled Darlings, playing tenor banjo, mandolin, cello, fiddle, and bass, while they bring in friends to add percussion and jazzy horn bits.

The group’s latest album, Red Yellow & Blue releases 15 May via Mudfarm Records. Today we bring you the premiere of the album’s opening track, “Snake & The Girl”, which takes on organized religion in a big way, saying “stand up for yourself… be your own goddamn salvation.” - Pop Matters

Strangled Darlings marches to the beat of a different drummer, a notion made all the more evident by the band’s lack of an actual drummer.

The Portland, Ore., duo — George Veech and Jess Anderly — seems uninterested in popular expectations or dictionary definitions of what a band is or should do. Rather than stick with the in-crowd, they would prefer to split off to charm any crowd that will lend a moment’s listen.

The pair makes music that rambles like a road film, rattles like a Pentecostal sermon and romances you like a tipsy dance with a lover. Their forthcoming record, “Boom Stomp King” sounds like author William Least Heat-Moon’s “Blue Highways,” with a few more psychedelic pigments in the mix.

In an email exchange, Veech’s roguish humor broke through like rays of sun piercing the clouds of typical interview patter. On several occasions, he referenced the “U.S. Department of Indie Music,” an imagined body that governs everything from genre tags to the formula by which a band generates its name. If such a department existed, Strangled Darlings would be in clear violation of its statutes.

A band’s setup always comes to bear on its sound — that truth is a bit easier to see and hear when its magic number is two. Although Veech primarily leads the way, he and Anderly trade and twine vocals in rich, often stirring ways. They strike chords and sculpt lines on, as Veech described, a “four-string mandolin with an electric pickup and a solid-body cello-as-bass.”

Anderly’s “bass lines are more like low-end counter melodies and not just the 1-5,” he said, adding that the pair’s sound is naturally percussive. The arrangement allows a definite flexibility and different sort of focus, Veech said.

“Playing as a duo allows more focus on the performers and the lyrics or story of the song,” he said. “As a duo we are more nimble to go from a big sound to a cappella to a simple bass line. The shift in energy is crucial to a good live show and has really helped train our ears to listen to what the other is doing. We’re more like a duet musically than a standard guitar/bass setup.”

Both Veech and Anderly have complicated but affectionate relationships with their given instruments. To facilitate the act of creation, Anderly put the violin down in favor of cello, Veech said.

“I played guitar for several years but got into ruts and boring licks that weren’t really mine,” he added. “But also the mandolin fits so nicely in the overhead compartment.”

He stripped half the strings from the mandolin and is “impressed how few people recognize it anymore” — his weapon of choice is often mistaken for a ukulele.

To hear Veech tell it, breaking the rules, or using traditional instruments in nontraditional ways, is not some unique act of defiance — it’s part of the job description.

“Once you break a few rules and realize that the U.S. Department of Indie Music doesn’t really exist, you can kind of do whatever you want — which is sort of the whole point of being in a creative field in the first place,” he said. “Try that ... at McDonald’s and they’ll throw you in the fry cooker.”

The band’s creative rhythms both expand with possibilities and contract with self-imposed limits. The pair gave itself a month’s notice to finish “Boom Stomp King.” It also set out to make a record that would reflect its live sound, “so that meant no other musicians on the album this time,” except for a lone percussion part, Veech said.

In the end, it matters to Strangled Darlings that any confines come from within, not without.

“Remember for creative types, limits or frames are good things,” Veech added. “You can’t tell a songwriter to just do anything. Limits help spur the imagination. At least that’s what my therapist told me when I got pissed about the very rules we made for this recording.”

While Veech wishes he “knew what separates a band from the pack,” he and Anderly seem to have found it. More than sound, style or sentiment, it is about knowing who you are and working out of that self-knowledge.

“Slowly I think indie music is becoming more of a meritocracy, because once you take all the money out from the big labels, you’re just left” with “musical artisans doing their thing,” he said. - Columbia Daily Tribune

George Veech and Jessica Anderly, the duo that make up Strangled Darlings, have an edgy approach to folk and Americana. Veech’s voice has similar harsh effects to Modest Mouse’s Issac Brock, whereas Anderly’s contributed vocals are much smoother. Strangled Darlings’ Red Yellow & Blue flows more like a collection of short stories than a general album of songs, which made for an interesting listen. The band’s unique style and sound easily can captivate listeners, especially with their dark feel. Strangled Darlings provide a fun, yet groovy spin on classic nursery rhymes and fairytales during “Salt Shaker.” The song is catchy yet slightly disturbing with the whiny fiddle as well as Veech’s almost maniacal tone. “Rider” features sharp harmonies between Veech and Anderly as well as a jazzy piano and bass ending.

Strangled Darlings takes acting a role to a new extreme during “J. Howard Marshall.” The up-tempo banjo fueled cut features a high pitched and odd vocal performance, which diversifies the album. A bouncy and bassy instrumental piece, “Mr. Love” snaps Red Yellow & Blue back to some variation of normal (or as normal as Strangled Darlings could get). The disc begins to come to a close with “Done Been Shown.” The trombone heavy piece has a strong show tune feel to it, making Strangled Darlings a jack of all trades. The final song, “Wolf Spider” is the slowest and deepest sounding on Red Yellow & Blue. The finale shows off Veech’s raw voice sans all the over-exaggerating, as well as more of Anderly’s bluesy, yet soft spoken, voice. Overall, Strangled Darlings certainly has one of the more interesting sounds that I’ve heard in a while.

In A Word: Eclectic

—by Roz Smith, May 21, 2012


- The Aquarian

review of new CD "Red Yellow & Blue" 2012 - Eugene Weekly

Review of new CD "Red Yellow & Blue" 2012 - Willamette Week

[MELODIC MALADIES] Portland duo Strangled Darlings resides at a bizarre crossroad of styles—a deranged meetinghouse where wayward angels, mental patients and the devil himself meet. Seemingly unrelated genres converge into a dark and twangy mix of twisted freak folk, Romany melodies, Cab Calloway saunter, Tom Waits murder ballads and everything in between, all hammered out on a mix of traditional and modern instruments.

After turning heads last year with a gleefully manic, self-titled LP (and then dropping off the radar completely), George Veech and Jessica Anderly have returned with The Devil in Outer Space: An Operetta, a collection of 11 tracks featuring the duo’s unique blend of eerie folk and dark, classically infused horror.

“It’s much easier to think of these songs as characters,” says Veech, a University of Virginia English major who arrived in town three years ago and met native Portlander Anderly shortly thereafter. “There’s a voice I use or a playing style I use on each song, and I definitely feel like there’s a story in every one.”

Devil plays out as an operetta, bouncing between disparate (yet surprisingly cohesive) styles and tones, growing more compelling with each listen.

Beginning with the dark folk twang of “Wondermaker,” it holds tight to a macabre, acoustic sound for several tracks before the operatic “Angel,” on which Veech sings in a falsetto to tell the tale of an untrustworthy guardian angel. Then the album amps up with heralding trumpets on “Heroes” and veers toward the groovy as Anderly channels Little Willie John’s “Fever” on “Sandy & Stuart.” The title track is a rollicking ride through the stratosphere in a spaceship piloted by Lucifer, while the closer, “Sail Along,” brings things to a melancholy end.

Anderly and Veech are something of an odd match—he’s a self-taught musical romantic who picked up mandolin and banjo for the project, while Anderly was classically trained as a violinist. In the Darlings’ initial lineup as a quartet, Anderly had difficulty letting her violin sing on its own. Now that the group has pared down to a duo (the record enlists a handful of guest musicians), she has learned to trust her gut rather than just her training. Anderly also plays cello, allowing other violinists to fill the void as she treats her newly acquired electric cello as a bass, thumping thick beats like a cross between Les Claypool and Yo-Yo Ma.

Anderly’s new freedom has meshed well with Veech’s less-technical approach to songwriting.
“I never say, ‘Can you do minor thirds?’ or something like that,” says Veech. “But if I say, ‘Can you make it sound like rain during hot sex?’ others will say, ‘Oh, of course.’ People seem to get that better than if I technically explain things.” - Willamette Week

The singer/guitarist for the band Strangled Darlings speaks at a rapid clip, occasionally tripping over his own words, as he works furiously to color in every empty space that might surround a question.

It's a befitting quality for a self-professed word junkie who grew up poring over prose and poetry (his band's name is a William Faulkner reference, after all) with aspirations of writing the "Great American Novel" in his younger days. And now that he's playing in a band, George Veech says his approach to language and words is becoming what he calls "post-verbal."

"If you step back and listen to someone talk, it's the music of the words. Say you're listening to an Obama speech or any famous leader: You don't need to know what they're actually saying. Later you can step back and do exegesis on what the words are, but when you're first hearing it, the actual content is not that important."

He extends this idea to his songs for the Darlings. Reinforced by a dazzled neo-folk sound that emphasizes rhythmic guitar and banjo playing and the bass-style plucking of cellist Jessica Anderly, Veech sings with a staccato pulse that follows a thin line between carnival barker and rapper.

Dig into the lyrics, though, and there's a lot to chew on. The band's latest album, "The Devil in Outer Space: An Operetta," weaves a dense tale of a cancer-ridden, heartbroken man named Stuart with songs inspired by Gabriel García Márquez's short stories and a title track that imagines Beelzebub commandeering God's spacecraft.

It may not fit the strict definition of an "operetta," and plenty of plot holes emerge. But, says Veech, there is a back story that is "more for us than the audience. We know all we need to know about this Stuart character, but more than anything we wanted to provide this tone of melancholy and introspection. No characters are really necessary for us to get that across."

The ruminative vibe of the album was aided by its somewhat unusual creation. Veech and Anderly holed up in a house in Vermont, where they were snowed in and kept to a strict schedule akin to band camp. "We'd get up around 9 a.m., eat, and then play for two hours. Then a break for lunch, write and play for a few more hours and then spend the rest of the night either jamming or playing in the snow."

Their relative isolation also helped to solidify the working relationship between the band's creative forces.

"We had to learn how to write songs together," says Veech. "And through this cohabitation, we learned that we write really easily together. We gained this implicit trust, both musically and artistically, with the understanding that, above all else, the song comes first."

-- Robert Ham - The Oregonian A&E

Portland CD release for "Red, Yellow & Blue" 2012 - Portland Mercury

Folk music has gotten to be one of the most eclectic genres in popular music. Many of this new breed seem set in taking traditional wooden instruments on a completely refreshing and vital way. The Portland folk duo Strangled Darlings are doing their best to test a few perceived limits.

Comprised of George Veech (vocals, guitar, banjo, mandolin) and Jessica Anderly (cello, violin, saw, vocals), the Strangled Darlings make a unique duality. He is self-taught, she is classically trained. The music is often uplifting and spritely, while the lyrics are dark.

The music is universally compelling, but what would Mom say about the lyrics? To see what the fuss is about, check out the duo when they perform Thursday, March 24 at 6 p.m. at Great Pacific Wine and Coffee Co., 403 S. Main St., Pendleton. There’s no cover charge for the all-ages show.

The written introduction to the Darlings’ first full-length release, “The Devil in Outer Space: An Operetta,” reads as follows: “Stuart rides a bus, bleeds, frets he is medicalized, he forgets. He wishes, runs, lusts & loves, always with fear, always waiting to be saved. Fate intervenes, gods battle, betrayal occurs, weakness is revealed. Finally, after it is surely too late, he sails. We listen.”

And what a listen it is. Stuart sees and experiences it all. Tragedy, bleakness, William Blake mysticism, untrustworthy guardian angels and even hot sex with higher powers — it’s all here. Word has it that the inspiration for the album was the question of what would happen if God commandeered Satan’s space ship. Hmmm ... that makes sense.

With all the attention that the lyrics seem to be getting, it’s the instrumental prowess of the players that’s the lasting treat of “The Devil in Outer Space.” The duo, as well as the various guest musicians, creates a warm vibrant sound that encourages repeat listens.

The Willamette Week described the Strangled Darlings as “... imagine Tom Waits and Jack White drinking in a Romani dive bar, then haphazardly mixing DNA.”

That may be the single most effective description of what one will find in the latest by Strangled Darlings. The bar room quirkiness, odd characters, stale smoke and a guitar or two. - East Oregonian

The Alberta Street Pub is an imperfect, lively place. The narrow churchlike performance space flanks the bar opposite the pub, though it’s walled off, forcing you to choose one or the other, pub or performance. So after you navigate past the old women gathered in the street wearing white flowing garments scented with exotic spices, their murmured conversation mysterious and compelling, you enter the front doors and turn left or right. Left leads you to a lackadaisical bartender; right takes you to the Strangled Darlings.

The bar is very dark, which I like. The bathrooms are small and ill-kept, which I don’t like but which inspires my unwilling nostalgia for the Austin music venues of my teenage years. The solitary girl behind the bar seems apathetic — not hostile, you understand, except in perhaps some vague passive aggressive sense — toward the twenty or so nattily dressed customers waiting in the single file line out the door to procure drinks at a snail’s pace. That the bartender is slow enough to lose a race with molasses already bodes ill for my voluntary return for a second round, despite the relative inexpensiveness of the wine.

Strangled Darlings. The band’s name sounds more sinister than its literary context bestows. Citing William Faulkner’s famous authorial advice that “In writing you must kill all your darlings,” the name taps into some core aspects of the band itself: Americana, self aware in its literary aspirations and of its heavy borrowing from the past.

Playing, Strangled Darlings feel like something constructed rather than grown. This is observation rather than criticism: music can feel organic and untethered, but these numbers, perhaps appropriately, have the handcrafted aspect of American quilts — colorful, stitched-to-each-other artifacts pieced together using the fabrics of dozens of other, older garments. This allows for a richness in texture, a sense of history and a sort of comfortable resonance with the past. Staccato circus-carny rap songs follow sweeping gypsy waltzes with Tom Waits edginess and the gangling grace of a Decemberists narrative.

There’s a sense of dense layering from song to song, one cultural or historical or contextual element over the next, so the cumulative effect becomes almost anthropologic. The band’s current album, The Devil in Outer Space: An Operetta, borrows inspiration from the short fiction of Gabriel García Márquez, and can be experienced first hand at a number of upcoming regional shows. Information, plenty of music samples, and tour dates can be found here.

When you go to the show, dress well. Preferably in garments styled before the onset of television. - Sleeping Hedgehog A Journal of An Untraditional Nature

Folk music has gotten to be one of the most eclectic genres in popular music. Many of this new breed seem set in taking traditional wooden instruments on a completely refreshing and vital way. The Portland folk duo Strangled Darlings are doing their best to test a few perceived limits.

Comprised of George Veech (vocals, guitar, banjo, mandolin) and Jessica Anderly (cello, violin, saw, vocals), the Strangled Darlings make a unique duality. He is self-taught, she is classically trained. The music is often uplifting and spritely, while the lyrics are dark.

The music is universally compelling, but what would Mom say about the lyrics? To see what the fuss is about, check out the duo when they perform Thursday, March 24 at 6 p.m. at Great Pacific Wine and Coffee Co., 403 S. Main St., Pendleton. There’s no cover charge for the all-ages show.

The written introduction to the Darlings’ first full-length release, “The Devil in Outer Space: An Operetta,” reads as follows: “Stuart rides a bus, bleeds, frets he is medicalized, he forgets. He wishes, runs, lusts & loves, always with fear, always waiting to be saved. Fate intervenes, gods battle, betrayal occurs, weakness is revealed. Finally, after it is surely too late, he sails. We listen.”

And what a listen it is. Stuart sees and experiences it all. Tragedy, bleakness, William Blake mysticism, untrustworthy guardian angels and even hot sex with higher powers — it’s all here. Word has it that the inspiration for the album was the question of what would happen if God commandeered Satan’s space ship. Hmmm ... that makes sense.

With all the attention that the lyrics seem to be getting, it’s the instrumental prowess of the players that’s the lasting treat of “The Devil in Outer Space.” The duo, as well as the various guest musicians, creates a warm vibrant sound that encourages repeat listens.

The Willamette Week described the Strangled Darlings as “... imagine Tom Waits and Jack White drinking in a Romani dive bar, then haphazardly mixing DNA.”

That may be the single most effective description of what one will find in the latest by Strangled Darlings. The bar room quirkiness, odd characters, stale smoke and a guitar or two.

Johnny Vinyl is a regular contributor to the EO community page. His column, Ride the vibe, focuses on entertainment. Contact him at tmalgesini@eastoregonian.com.
- East Oregonian

He sounds like David Byrne’s second cousin once removed, and George Veech uses his offbeat voice to great effect as part of the Portland duo Strangled Darlings. Veech strums the mandolin, guitar, and tenor banjo, while fellow singer Jessica Anderly plays the cello, violin and saw. The two perform folksy early 20th century inspired music with just a touch of 21st century groove creating songs that range from gorgeous to quirky and evokes those pre-radio days when a traveling troubadour had to carry a blade, a gun and a grin if he wanted to make it safely from town to town. This eccentric talented duo mark the release of their latest CD “The Devil in Outer Space: An Operetta.” - Portland Tribune

The maiden listen to the new album by Strangled Darlings is a bit disconcerting. Tackling this music is almost the sonic equivalent of reading an investigative piece published in “The New Yorker.” The intricate artistry, generally created with the most basic language and tools, makes you feel like the dunce who may or may not understand the brilliant nuances.

The best advice is to dive right into The Devil in Outer Space: An Operetta and just enjoy. You can’t sidestep the layers of the music — created by multi-instrumentalists George Veech (mandolin, guitar, tenor banjo, vocals) ?and Jessica Anderly (cello, violin, saw, vocals) ?who added Sharon Cannon on violin and Jolie Clausen on percussion for this album – so why even try? Start by getting into the acoustic groove created with “Wondermaker” and enjoy how Veech’s desolate, rough-edged vocals contrast with the sound that grows to include cello. Before you know it, you’ll settle into a nice groove as the alt-country-tinged pluck lead into “Tears of Akhmatova.” As you begin to understand the depth of the lyrics on “The Devil in Outer Space,” don’t be surprised if you get into the almost on-the-verge-of-fully-rocking-out drums that bring it all home. By the time you get to the album’s final song “Sail Along,” and the lyrics “Well, the cancer’s back, it’s the simple fact, that make me reach for a beer,” you’ll feel this was a sonic journey well worth taking.

Strangled Darlings are one of the few folk duos that deftly mix genres, emotions and observations to not only share what they’re thinking, but help you better clarify your own impressions. Isn’t that what great music is all about?

By, Nancy Dunham - American Songwriter

Strangled Darlings is an incredibly insinuative name for what this multi-talented duo musically stands for –– something beautiful and sweet sharpened by an overwhelming reality. Here, we have vocalist George Veech, with his recordings of mandolin, guitar and tenor banjo, and then we have cellist Jessica Anderly, who unconventionally utilizes a five string cello as bass. Then, these two collaborate with percussionist Jolie Clausen and violinist Sharron Cannon for recording of The Devil in Outer Space. The result? The cabaret folklore and musical diversity of Beirut, meddled with the explicit straightforwardness of the Pixies, or, say, a classic Modest Mouse.

Granted, that's a strange mix, but let's take their feverish lyrical content into consideration. In "Blue Sailor" there's a priest with a shovel, an eclipsed moon in a lagoon, men with "sand in their hats" during "jellyfish season," all of which is haunted by a wavering saw and Veech's gauntly voice. The whole thing is very Big Fish meets the Nightmare Before Christmas.

Meanwhile, more instrumentally-full songs like "The Devil in Outer Space" allow Anderly's profound understanding of rhythm really shine through, proving their captivating and truly authentic understanding of what folk music should be.

The Devil in Outer Space will be released this upcoming Tuesday, March 1, and don't miss their release party happening at Alberta Street Public House on March 5; it'll run ya a mere $5. - April Ehrlic - The Deli

Choosing the harsh Vermont winter as their creative muse, the Portland-based acoustic duo Strangled Darlings locked themselves down and focused on recording their first full-length album. Titled The Devil in Outer Space: An Operetta (to be released on March 1st via Mudfarm Records), the ten track effort moves from ghostly minimalism to impassioned operas tinged with dramatic strings (cello, violin and mandolin).

Following their 2009 eponymous EP, The Devil in Outer Space was recorded with Dylan Magierek (Starfucker, Mark Kozelek, Thao Nguyen). Listen below and you’ll immediately understand that Strangled Darlings are not a timid folk act.

"Pushing new boundaries with The Devil in Outer Space, the group’s operetta explores answers to the inspired question, what would happen if God commandeered the Devil’s spaceship? Vocalist George Veech’s lyrical answers plumb the depths of gentle tragedy, abject bleakness, and William Blake-esque apostasy. His recorded mandolin, guitar and tenor banjo create dark and brooding atmospheres, that compliment and swell over cellist and general rhythm princess Jessica Anderly’s playing. Her unorthodox style of playing a five string cello as a bass displays an intuitive sense of knowing which beats to drop as much as which ones to add. The duo are joined on the recording by percussionist Jolie Clausen and Sharon Cannon on violin.

“The Devil in Outer Space: An Operetta‘s eclectic sound moves far and wide over the pop spectrum, from the simple acoustic-lilt of cello and mandolin as seen on their spare opening track “Wondermaker,” to the genre-bending “Mousetrap,” an off kilter waltz about domestic implosion. Followed by an almost hip-hop-swing number about sex with the she-Devil in Georgia in “Circus,” it’s the beautiful, sad and absurd woven together that make Strangled Darlings unique in their approach to taking pop music out of its safety zone and into a naked examination of faith, mortality and really hot sex.” - Oregon Music News

Following up 2009's self-titled EP, Portland, Ore.’s Strangled Darlings are releasing their debut album on March 1. The Devil In Outer Space: An Operetta (Mudfarm) found the multi-instrumentalist duo of George Veech and Jessica Anderly working with producer Dylan Magierek (Starfucker, Mark Kozelek) in a self-imposed lockdown mode in Vermont during the winter. The result is an eclectic, 11-track collection that is remarkably rich despite being almost entirely acoustic. We are proud to premiere one of The Devil In Outer Space‘s standout tracks, “Circus,” today on magnetmagazine.com. Download it below. - Magnet

Traveling around the USA in a 19-foot, Class C Coachmen RV they call "Shakeyhouse" with a 20-pound Labradoodle named Mr. Smalls, Jess Anderly and George Veech are learning the rules of the road. Together, the creatively and romantically linked couple is Strangled Darlings, a multigenre indie band from Portland, Oregon, who play their first-ever Florida gig at Burro Bar this Saturday.

"It's a lot like the Navy in every regard except that we don't have any nuclear missiles," says Veech (vocals, mandolin, harmonica) of their life on the road. "As long as you establish certain ground rules, it's easier than you think to survive or actually be happy on tour because you're always doing something new."

Last summer, Veech and Anderly sold most of their earthly possessions, bought said RV and hit the asphalt for a whirlwind U.S. tour to support their upcoming release and fourth album, Boom Stomp King, dropping nationwide in March and available now at shows.

"Our previous three albums had included a backing band, more orchestration and production," says Anderly (vocals, cello, bass). "When we started recording this album, we'd already been touring regionally as a duo, and we were going to go out nationally as a duo. I really felt strongly that we should try to record the album as just two people."

Veech and Anderly met in Portland in 2010 at a friend's Winter White party — singing Prince songs late into the night.

"I wasn't playing much at that point," Anderly says. "I grew up playing classical violin. And George was just starting a little band and he asked me to come play violin in the band that dissolved within six months, and then Strangled Darlings started out."

The band once had a violinist, keyboardist and drummer, "but a couple of years ago, we scaled down to just a duo because it made it a lot easier to tour," Anderly says. "And we like to practice a lot and most people don't like to practice, so a duo is much more workable — especially now that we're touring all the time. I can't imagine there are that many people who want to be on the road all the time like this."

Out and about since June, Veech and Anderly haven't experienced any major emotional meltdowns or catastrophic RV troubles, but that doesn't mean this is a stress-free scenic journey through America. They've scheduled some 75 shows, and the two spend all of their "off days" handling the business side of Strangled Darlings — i.e., booking, promotion, press.

"We just have gear for a small venue performance and clothes and that's about it," Veech says. "It's so you can run a small indie band like a business and cut costs. You don't have to stay in hotels and you don't have to couch surf for so long that you're miserable. It's not as romantic as you'd think."

The band's name, Strangled Darlings, comes from a William Faulkner quotation about the "ruthless editing of your creative work by removing the parts you might really like but have no place in the piece." As Faulkner put it, "In writing, you must kill all your darlings."

The name is fitting for a band that can lean toward the macabre elements that sometimes guide their lyrics and sound. Veech's savage, varied vocal style and aggressive mandolin skills, combined with Anderly's playing of a custom-built cello, which she plucks like a bass, has helped the Darlings produce a unique sound. Or as Veech likes to call it, "trying to be original without trying to be too weird."

The song "Snake and The Girl" is driven by a relentless descending bass riff and some cookin' mandolin, with Veech's vocal delivery more akin to a crazed preacher than an introspective folkie. In the official video for the song, Anderly seduces Veech in a bathtub as a snake wraps around his body. Their tune "Orange Peel" plays like a somber waltz; "King of Kings" features junkyard percussion that's like a tip of the hat to Tom Waits.

The duo has also become well-known for high-energy live shows, which always feature crowd interaction and snarky side comments.

"You know, you get this kind of über-sincere folk artist who is like, ‘This song is about my grandmother's struggles to maintain a dignified life as a coal miner and yadda yadda and all this stuff,'" says Veech. "And that gets tiresome, so instead we'll say something like, ‘This song explains how to become a drug addict' or whatever comes to mind." - Folio Weekly