There is something about the phrase “Los Angeles-based darkwave trio” that fills me with dread. Darkwave is usually the soundtrack for basement dwellers and, with Los Angeles being a city of sunshine, those basements would have to be particularly deep and, as result of those environmental considerations, Chalk Teeth would need to do some serious musical action to get their self-titled album up to street level.
I doubt anyone will sing along to any of these seven songs as this is an album hellbent on the creation of atmosphere and an atmosphere with many attached shadows at that. The drum machine underpins everything with those patterns evoking the days of primitive electronica when everything of worth to the curious and the trendy was to be found underground. It is , perhaps, no surprise that a certain stylistic rigidity entirely consistent with genre expectations is therefore enforced with guitars, synths and those artfully foreign words combining to create a musical experience that the night people will recognise as the work of those that are of their own.
There is undoubtedly a deliberately oppressive quality about all of the music that fits into the darkwave genre and Chalk Teeth duly fit their round peg into the round hole whilst adding a dash of suitably laconic stylistic seasoning to their recipe.