On Desire

When Matt Hitt says Drowners' second album was "written with a lot of uncertainty and darkness," it's easy to ask one simple question: Really? After all, the hooks careening across 'On Desire' hit as hard as their debut, a DIY record that earned Drowners a cult following on the road alongside Cage the Elephant, Foals and Arctic Monkeys. Unlike the introspective songs Hitt wrote for their self-titled debut, 'On Desire' is more of a group effort, a full-on collaboration from its demo stages at an upstate cabin to sleepless recording sessions at several NYC studios (including Electric Lady and The Bunker) with producer Claudius Mittendorfer. Lurking a few levels beneath the group's tightly wound post-punk tracks are bittersweet minor-key melodies that burn like the red light of a setting sun. The honeymoon period is over, in other words, with the rose-coloured rush of living in a new city - Hitt is Welsh and lived in London before moving to the USA five years ago - replaced by lingering pangs of paranoia, anxiety and doubt.