Those Darlins

Those Darlins, the Murfreesboro, Tennessee country-punk band whose sound sits between Shonen Knife, the Shangri-Las, and the Carter Family, have appeared on bills with the Black Keys, Deer Tick, Jon Spencer, and Wanda Jackson. The group formed in 2006 around Nikki Kvarnes, Jessi Zazu, Kelly Anderson, and drummer Linwood Regensburg. After sharpening their approach in Nashville clubs, they issued their self-titled debut in 2009, launched into nonstop touring, and sold out rooms in major cities. Their high-energy sets reached festival stages at SXSW and Bonnaroo, after which they delivered the sophomore album Screws Get Loose in March 2011. Once road work for that record concluded, Kelly Anderson exited in February 2012 to launch Grand Strand; Adrian Barrera, formerly of Barreracudas and Gentleman Jesse & His Men, took her place. The revised lineup began an EP with producer Scott Litt that expanded into album sessions, one track from which—“Mystic Mind”—surfaced as a single while the full project remained unfinished. A second attempt with Roger Moutenot proved successful, resulting in the more restrained and thoughtful Blur the Line, released in October 2013. The band kept touring until their final show in 2015. Zazu and Regensburg intended to form a new project, but Zazu’s cervical cancer diagnosis interrupted those plans, and she died from the disease in September 2017.