"When you get right down to it," Darker My Love's Tim Presley says, "this record is about loss and hard work."

Informed by profound personal tragedy, Alive As You Are is the Los Angeles-based band's most musically focused and emotionally direct collection to date. Songs like "June Bloom" and "Dear Author" see DML traveling away from their trademark psychedelic power drones to a more evocative approach reliant on bold, straightforward songcraft and earthy, intricate arrangements. The band's third Dangerbird Records album, Alive As You Are marks an extraordinary reinvention for Darker My Love - a rambling, powerfully realized work of great nuance and even greater heart.