8/10

Goodbye Darjeeling’s debut full-length 'Total Confusion' lands like a journal someone meant to burn but couldn’t bring themselves to. It’s a record steeped in late-night honesty, flickering memories and guitar lines that feel lifted from an old VHS tape of the mid-90s, but its emotional core is entirely present-tense.

Across ten tracks (twenty-two if you include the extended bonus additions), the project’s frontman builds a world that feels both cinematic and claustrophobic. Everything is filtered through his restless storytelling as he tries to make sense of the rubble behind him. It’s less a linear narrative and more a shattered mosaic, filled with childhood flashbacks, heartbreak echoes, the sting of growing up too fast, and the ache of trying to stitch yourself back together with nothing but distortion pedals and resolve.

Musically, 'Total Confusion' swings like a pendulum between clarity and chaos. One moment you’re hit with jangling riffs that would’ve slotted neatly onto a forgotten Shine compilation; the next, shimmering washes of sound bloom into something dreamlike and overwhelming. It’s a riot of retro influences, yet it never feels trapped in nostalgia. Instead, Goodbye Darjeeling treat the past as something to paint with, not live inside.

The album’s earlier singles (each paired with self-made visuals) hinted at the emotional sprawl to come, but hearing everything stitched together reinforces what the band say they’ve been working toward. And for all the talk of confusion, the record is startlingly sure of its emotional terrain. Tracks swell and retreat like waves, and on each one, the vocals tremble between resignation and revelation.

In the end, 'Total Confusion' succeeds because it feels like someone wrestling themselves back into the world. It’s imperfect, human, tender, and volatile. A debut that tries to be honest. And it’s all the more affecting for it.