I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness

I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness is a five-piece dark pop band out of Austin, TX; scene mates include Paul Newman, Windsor for the Derby, and Glorium. But I Love You, formed in 2001 and comprised of singer Christian Goyer, bassist Edward Robert, guitarists Ernest Salaz and Daniel Del Favero, and percussionist Tim White, is not all that predictable, at least if their debut album, Fear Is on Our Side, tells a reliable story. Where the band's self-titled EP, a five-song dazzler issued in 2003 on the daredevil Emperor Jones label (and reissued in 2006 by Secretly Canadian), offered up mildly doleful and semi-danceable indie rock courtesy of Spoon's Britt Daniel, who produced and helped swirl buzz on the band beyond the city limits, Fear Is on Our Side takes a turn for the seriously, achingly bleak. Echoes of Talk Talk and other visceral, introspective 1980s bands filter through the familiar guitar textures, but the mid-2000s is a new era for intelligent gloominess, and flavoring this brew is an overcharged mindfulness that suggests close attention to recent musical history, especially electronica. Though the group's output so far suggests a willingness to climb and explore, cynicism would seem to be an enduring I Love You trait. Their recognition of its versatility promises to propel them.