Everything Good

Album Review

Singer/songwriter Jason Daniello had a chance to hone his compositional and multi-instrumental skills as a veteran of numerous New Mexico bands throughout the 1990s, and it's therefore no surprise that those experiences carried through into his new millennium solo work. Recorded in 2006, Everything Good was his second solo album, and its songs generally alternate between a pleasantly dreamy blend of rock, folk, and pop when he's strumming his acoustic ("How Long," "Stared," "Tiny Pill") and a subdued form of power pop when he cranks up his electric ("What You Can," "Resist," "Elizabeth Anne"). But Daniello changes tack completely for the turgid, slow-as-molasses title track and its somber low-end guitar rumbles, suggesting he certainly didn't miss out on Seattle completely during his formative years. Then, on the heartfelt ballad "I Do" (featuring his wife on background vocals), he strips a Beatles vocal melody down to its fragmentary essence and tacks it onto a mournful acoustic framework that borders on anemic (even more so when his ideas aren't fully fleshed out — see "Walking Away" and "Daylight"). His voice, meanwhile, alternates between bouncy economy and a fragile soulfulness that often sounds virtually identical in timber to Incubus' Brandon Boyd, curiously enough. So for fans of laid-back desert musings, rife with modern rock references ranging from the Smithereens and Wilco to Bob Mould and Matthew Sweet, Daniello is just the ticket.