For folk group Darlingside, it was a tumultuous time when they were writing their latest album, Extralife, both politically and personally, as they grasped with the complexities that come with being in your 30s. The uncertainty shows up in their new music in the form of apocalyptic themes in lyrics like "It's over now/ "The flag is sunk/"The world has flattened out," from their title-track.
"When we write, it's not with the idea to sort of put a message out or anything like that, it's more just trying to be authentic to the way the four of us think when we put our heads together," band member Auyon Mukharji told the Recording Academy. "It feels very authentic to us."
While four minds may seem like a handful in the writer's room, Mukharji says it was an even playing field for all the band.
"For this last record, all four of us got in on ground level for each song, so it wasn't as though one person was bringing a fully-finished piece and the rest of us were adjusting little bits, it was more that all of us were sort of working from the start," Mukharji said.
