It’s not because Darlingside’s core musical fingerprint flows seamlessly in and out of exciting transitions, which we recognize as rock, folk, jazz, and classical, but never for one moment do we expect it to turn up right there.

It’s not their genius for disrupting our conditioned expectations for where a song should end, which can bring a crowd to its feet more often than not.

It’s an inner force of connective tissue between all five, band members that embraces a heady mix of their intelligent hearts and hold-nothing-back musical souls.

Darlingside’s sweeping power, infused with intimate, nearly delicate strokes of their stringed instruments, starts out innocently enough, their almost familiar chords and melodies seducing you into a comfort zone of surround sound.

Only the sound relentlessly gathers speed on the out-breath, while infinitely expanding on the in-breath, until you are somewhere between having an out-of-body experience right before falling asleep and rushing one of Australia’s most enormous waves on your surfboard.

Like all deep mysteries—we are at a loss to ever fully describe—what my hearing brain is telling me is “music” becomes so much more, as I said in the beginning, that I have to give up listening.

Instead, I let go. I fall back into the arms of their ever-rising crescendo of sound and let it carry me to some unanticipated shore—a experience that feels edgy, gently dangerous, and laced with exhilarating trust.

Darlingside is a full body-mind-spirit night out, which I plan to indulge in again—just as soon as I find out where they are playing.