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Check out what the critics have to say about Darkk Bros. first release:

Darkk Bros. (VoidWare)
CMJ New Music Report
Issue 522 – May 19, 1997
Reviewer – Tad Hendrickson

Darkk Bros., don‘t have a Hammond organ, but they‘ve got the groove often associated with the acid-jazz movement. Drummer Joe Bianco and bassist (upright and electric) Jason Erdmann anchor the whole affair by swinging in and out of the beat, hitting it dead on when they need some oomph. With this solid rhythm section, guitarist Anthony Fresina and trombonist Mike Hagedorn have plenty of room in which to stretch out. Fresina‘s limber fretwork is angular and occasionally surprising. Though he‘s probably not familiar with Joe Biaza‘s work in the criminally overlooked and ahead-of-it‘s time Universal Congress Of, the two guitarists are kindred spirits. Mike Hagedorn handles the trombone chores, playing the frontline foil to Fresina. Sonically speaking, Hagedorn leaves plenty of room for Fresina and musically, the trombone adds nice touches throughout, playing like a bopper and not insulting his instrument with the carnival-like slurs and barks that so many associate with the instrument. Hagedorn and Fresina write individually, but the band has hit upon a style that takes each writer‘s compositions in and churns them out as a unified whole of tight arrangements that are supplanted with plenty of time grooves. From the look of the back cover, these guys are young in years, but there is no doubt that they know exactly what their doing. With this in mind, it will be interesting to see where their whimsy, and a broader audience, might take them.

Darkk Bros. (VoidWare)
Illinois Entertainer
August 1997
Reviewer – Todd Avery Shanker

On their audacious debut, Darkk Bros. boldly display their boundary-blasting jazz-based mystery music. This four-piece juxtaposes thick, resonant, and at times funky upright bass, edgy, entrancing electric guitar, and lissome yet dynamic drumming with a hearty expressive trombone. While not as easy to pin down as Medeski Martin and Wood, this inexorably inventive disc is loosely comparable to MMW‘s exciting musical environments. The pieces are diverse and original. At times, Darkk Bros. recall the provocative tuba-band Plunge with their improvised jazz-groovery (DMJ III), and at other times primo King Crimson, if only in the way they create and then detonate their hair-raising instrumental architecture (check Mr. Asshole and Big Daddy). Yet, they can also ooze chicken-scratch funk, as on Princess in a Pathfinder and especially Greasy Fingers, a slow saucy RB soul-shot. Freak Show will not only rock your world but flip it upside down. This is one of the disks shining moments, as the Bros. explore energy jazz with furios intensity and imagination, drawing keenly from forebearers like Albert Ayler and Ornette Coleman. The Bros.‘s fresh menage of guitar and trombone consistently proves to be an adrenaline-rush. At times, the songs creep to the edge of chaos with eyewatering intensity, only to melt back into a churning rhythm or thematic head. This is the shit – that rare album that‘s intriguing, challenging, and thrilling.

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