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The Darling Buds

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Newport indie-pop group from the late-eighties C86 aftermath, pairing bright guitar jangle with Andrea Lewis's unmistakable vocal.

The Darling Buds took shape in Caerleon, near Newport, in 1986, when a 19-year-old Andrea Lewis, later Jarvis, teamed up with guitarist Geraint Farr, known as Harley. The earliest version of the band ran on a drum machine before bassist Chris McDonagh and drummer Richard "Bloss" Gray joined. Independent singles picked up airplay from John Peel and Janice Long, part of the indie-pop scene that grew out of the C86 cassette, and Sony signed the band in 1988, issuing their records through Epic.

Pop Said... arrived in 1989 following the single Hit the Ground, and reached number 23 on the UK albums chart, with the single climbing to number 27. The band performed it on Top of the Pops that January, their only appearance on the show, and were pictured on the covers of Melody Maker and NME around the same time.

The band's music is built on fast, bright chord playing and short pop structures, with Lewis's clear, high vocal carrying the melody through records that grew progressively fuller and more produced.

Gray left in 1990 and was replaced by Jimmy Hughes, formerly of Black, for the album Crawdaddy, produced by Stephen Street. Its singles Crystal Clear and It Makes No Difference reached numbers five and thirteen on the US Modern Rock chart.

Erotica followed in 1992, with the single Sure Thing reaching number 71 in the UK and Please Yourself reaching 22 on the US Modern Rock chart, while Long Day in the Universe turned up on the soundtrack to So I Married an Axe Murderer. The band split after touring the US amid financial and organisational strain, reunited in 2010, and has toured regularly since 2013, releasing the Evergreen EP, a retrospective boxset, and a new album due through Cherry Red.

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