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Boston-based quartet take us into gardens once again with their slice of baroque folk-pop on fourth: “Everything Is Alive.”

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It’s felt like only yesterday since Fish Pond Fish was released during the heights of lockdown in 2020, with the serenity of Ocean Bed pulling us away from those captive nights. Now, we see folks’ busiest four-piece take us through the orchard groves once more with Everything Is Alive. A telling story on life’s treasures through a looking glass, Darlingside hit their stride once more. Not too liberal in their mannerisms, the alt-folk quartet combine lush harmonies and woven acoustics to create a dazzling piece of work.

Like the melancholic cousin of Fairport Convention and Nash & Young, this project is neither dull or drowsy. But rather, a telling timepiece on powerful subjects – gun violence, meditating on death, rebirth, facets of loss, shades of optimism and your own life choices. A vocality of male chorale serenity with Eliza I See as the fiddles are tugged via rhythm, while All The Lights in the City has the antique tinge of traditional folk at its most ripe – all the more met with a jaggery George of the Jungle-esque percussive beat. Senft coos out, “it is morning over Lake Michigan on my right side, honey / Maybe working is what makes us live, or maybe it’s living / Sky is always hanging blue above the cloud.” The chorus is one of beauty, as an overarching horn section blares out those final notes. Darkening Hour is a mediocre alt-folk journey of contemplation into what could’ve been – as a haunting acoustic is patterned in-between a trajectory of piano keys scooped out of water. The vocals wane and murmur, “It was easy then / There was time to burn and clear it all out / There was time to lie and let ourselves down … Before the darkening hour.” It’s beautiful but it’s also the group at their most melancholic, a sombre reminder that the number of days you have left can be wrapped up in a calendar.

We’re met with more mesmerising male chorale and light harmonies, a hearing more fitting in a church pew than on forest soil. The piano motifs in How Long Again is wonderful songwriting while lead-up Right Friend is a glitzy magical number of hypnotic fingering, woozy low tones and consonant violin pitches. This song is very much on the cusp of meditating with death and can be a bit of a mighty powerful piece of storytelling for even the most strong-headed of folk to endure. “You’ve always been the right kind / Of friend when I’m at / My end.”

Even though the world will eventually come to an end, there’s still beauty and hope in all of us and in song. That about sums up the wistful mystery that is the music of Darlingside.

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The literary-minded music of Darlingside – consisting of Don Mitchell, Auyon Mukharji, Harris Paseltiner, and David Senft – is not arbitrary nor is it to be scoffed at. At the face of it, it’s ethereal indie-folk with strong vocals leading the fray. But as you let yourself seep in-between the cracks, it’s exquisitely arranged music that’s both mesmerising and a marvel to listen to.

To get a glimpse of these guys’ in their natural habitat, watch their recent performance for NPR Music Tiny Concerts at the start of this month.

For all its upfront simplicity, in voice and acoustics, Darlingside’s Tiny Desk Concert has stuck with me as a most compelling performance — a perfect match of songwriting, with contributions from all members.