Austin?s Darling New Neighbors have It. How do I know, when they jump from style to style with ease; how do I find It in the midst of country lopes and downtown angular rock? How can a band that seems to draw as much from the Replacements as it does from UT have It? Well ? when you think about It ? it becomes apparent that these are actually hallmarks of having It. It is musical omnivorousness; It is an ability to harken back to a freewheeling ?80s underground sound; It is having obvious fun and good humor. Darling New Neighbors have all of this. They veer from ?Seven,? a well-oiled rock stomp, to ?The Best You Can Do,? where Salem 66 tangles with Gram Parsons. ?The Time Has Come? is for all those who miss Scrawl, a chunky-chorded angst brick wrapped in barbed lyrics. The ultra-catchy ?Grocery? stalks around in my memory as obsessively as the narrator of the song follows someone who seems at first to be an objet d?amor. But it?s not a twee K Records woncha-be-my-cutie-pie romp, as it has a dark heart: ?I know what you do when you go home at night / yell at your girlfriend when you close the door / and she asks for more?it?s my kind of problem what you do to her.? They?re not afraid to get political either, though ?You?re Like Gasoline? has an odd, oblique bent to its commentary: ?Ari Fleischer says no, it?s a big big no / but Jimmy Carter says yes.? These people are smart, and are unafraid to be smart, but their music swings, too, appealing to both the brain and the gut. 7/10 -- Sal Addays (2 October, 2006)