Introducing: Olive Dares The Darkness

There’s something almost magical about the haunting melodies and intensity of South Carolina’s Olive Dares The Darkness, who explore the darker sides of life in an alternative rock meets dark wave sound that they describe as “irreverent, exploratory and ambitious.”

The Charleston band started out as an acoustic duo between guitarist Mike Baum and vocalist Becca Darling, of whom Olive is a fictional stage alter ego, after they met on Craigslist back in 2014. But the duo quickly realised they wanted to go in another direction, so they onboarded bassist Ken, who’s Mike’s brother, and drummer Danielle Carlson over the next few years.

And on the sound they’ve honed, the band told us: “We joke that we sound like Nine Inch Nails and Madonna had a baby, but truthfully, we feel comfortable describing our sound as akin to late ’80s industrial. We’re most often compared to an updated Siouxsie and the Banshees.

“Olive is a fictional character and Becca’s stage alter-ego. The concept behind the name is that the most powerful people accept all aspects of their personality, even the darker sides. We are daring our own darkness to create something great.”

Our latest taste of this is Olive Dares The Darkness’ new single Welcome To The Club (Banned From The Club Mix), which was released on Monday. The track is a reinvention of their previous song In The Club, has been remixed by The Welcoming, a band from Asheville, NC, and sounds nothing like the original.

The track opens up with a funky, lively riff that drops into engaging layered vocals that intensify with heavier guitars, building up to an engaging chorus supported by the opening darting riff. The pace drops in another delicious verse and gradually builds towards another excellent chorus, which gives way to a meandering guitar solo over chugging guitars. That suddenly drops out with high-pitched cries of “the club,” which are joined by the opening riff and driving drums.

“As this track is a remix of a song released around this time last year, we believe people may already have a preconceived notion of what it is supposed to sound like. We encourage listeners to throw that notion away, as this version sounds nearly nothing like the original. It started as a pensive, reflective song, but The Welcoming has transformed it into a fierce ride that maintains little of the original feel. We prefer to think of it less as a remix and more as a response to the first version. While the original version asks how we deal with dark feelings, the remix responds by getting angry.

“The Welcoming is a fantastic metal act from Asheville, NC. We’ve been working with them on and off for several years, so when we offered them the chance to remix our song, they jumped at it. What they created was totally unexpected, but in the most incredible way. It is refreshing to listen to our own music not as perpetual critics, but as genuine fans.” Check it out in the very cool animated video here:

That track follows on from Olive Dares The Darkness’ second album II, which was released in 2023. The album is packed with engaging rocky goodness, including the aforementioned In The Club, the powerful Blackstone, and Becca’s superb vocals come to the fore in Fox and Scorpion and the magnificent closing track Gods of Virtue. But we particularly love the sound of the dark Obsession, which opens up with 80s-sounding synths and stabbing guitars. Post-punky deep vocals take over and give way to Becca’s light, fun vocals then dual vocals conjoin in an engaging chorus, “You are obsession, You’re my obsession, What do you want me to be, To make you sleep with me.” Check it out here:

Olive Dares The Darkness’ music is inspired by a long list of genres and bands, including the likes of Siouxsie, Nine Inch Nails, Type O Negative, Tori Amos, David Bowie, Tool, KMFDM and Tears for Fears. While Danielle is, in the band’s words, “a musical theater nerd,” so she brings a vast array of musicals to the mix.

And on what inspires them to write music, they explained: “Boredom, mostly. We’re all professional musicians in some capacity—educators, session musicians—and playing the same music over and over can become quite mundane. We write music to challenge and entertain ourselves. We wouldn’t say we have key themes, but we frequently enjoy telling stories. Becca and Mike are the primary lyricists; they come up with a concept and attempt to tell a story about it.

“Welcome To The Club actually came from an album we released last Christmas. We enjoy releasing remixes while we work on our next album, and we’re super excited to be currently working on our third album. We’re experimenting with some new writing and recording techniques, so we don’t have a timeline for when it will be finished. We hope the upcoming remixes will satiate our fans while we create new material.”

Olive Dares The Darkness are currently taking time away from gigging to craft their thrid album, which will give them new material to showcase. As they tell us: “We frequently encounter the issue of not having cohesive releases; we’ll gig a new song before the single is out, release singles before the album is finished, and so on. This time, we want to have all our ducks in a row so we can support a completed project.”

You can follow Olive Dares The Darkness on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and check out their music on Spotify, Bandcamp, Apple Music, Deezer, Soundcloud and YouTube.