Drowned In a Sea of Sound

Album Review

Upstate New York indie rockers the Daysleepers aren't kidding with that album title: not since the shoegazer heyday has a band been so intent on immersing the listener in veritable oceans of reverb, echo, and effects pedals. Apparently raised on a steady diet of My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive albums, the Daysleepers have that turn of the '90s sound down cold, but like many of the bands who found themselves on the shoegazer bandwagon, their debut full-length reveals a fatal flaw. Once the listener mentally strips away all the things that makes these ten songs sound really, really cool, the songs themselves are revealed to be pretty weak, neither melodically nor lyrically memorable beyond the pretty but shallow surfaces. On the other hand, shoegaze bands tended to be about little more than the surfaces (there's a reason why the vocals were usually set way back in the mix, or why Liz Fraser usually sang in a made-up language, so that the vocals would be treated as just another instrument), so that's not necessarily a flaw for die-hard fans of the style. And that demographic will be so enamored by the sound of songs like the rushing "Megatron Supernova" and the aptly titled "Lovesparkles" that thoughts of depth or stylistic redundancy will be moot. Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream, as someone once said.