Darwin Smith: Here’s a guy who takes way too seriously the fact that he doesn’t take himself seriously at all. Let’s look at some evidence. Exhibit A: He goes by the stage surname Deez. Exhibit B: The album cover is only a few thorns short of being a literal take on Christ. Exhibit C: The album’s opening lyrics go thusly: “Twinkle, twinkle little star/ How I wonder what you are/ There’s a million little lights/ When the sky turns black tonight.” So yeah, he jokes about how he doesn’t joke about how he jokes. Got it?Unsurprisingly, the reality becomes apparent that beyond all the silliness, the cutesiness ”“ let’s fact it: all the fucking twee ”“ Deez just makes lo-fi indie pop like everyone else these days. Sure, it’s entertaining but it’s not original or has any kind of vital artistic merit. The record’s fun and that seems to be the point of Deez’s existence. The giddy temperament is found throughout, and so the problem becomes that any given song is like the one that precedes or succeeds it. Thus, it’s hard to pick out any highlights. That said, when Deez does stray from the indie-lo-fi-dance-rock formula ”“ if only slightly ”“ that’s where his writing actually stands out. ‘The Suicide Song’ is a promising clap-along power-pop-flavored track about, well, suicide. It’s one of the only songs containing lyrics that don’t share the music’s merriment (the others being ‘Bad Day’ and ‘The City’). The best song of the lot, ‘Radar Detector,’ is also the most different from anything else. The bouncy cut is the one song that can be easily singled out from an otherwise monotonous fog of glee. The guitar riff alone gives the song an honest feel the rest of the album lacks. And the lyrics are just as ridiculous: a love song about the device ”“ no metaphor, no simile, just the speeding-evasion tool.And that’s the reason ‘Radar Detector’ works: It knows exactly what it is and is not. It isn’t confused about its personality or direction; it has just the right absurdity-to-authentic-songwriting ratio. The rest of the album is essentially a subterfuge of genuine depth buried under insincere irony. An (over)abundance of records exist that have been made purely for enjoyment’s sake and little else ”“ if there was any reason beyond that at all. Consequently, it gives Darwin Deez a sense of frivolity because what is demonstrated here has been done before and, sadly, been done better. Therefore, by now it feels like if you want to make an album for that specific purpose, it should damn well be worth hearing more than twice. Otherwise, what was the point?