Album Review: Daydream Plus – Second Last Day of Summer
Reviewed by Oli Gonzalez
A math-rock side project from members of Tomb Mold? That got my attention. See, having seen the Canadian death metallers tear up London at Incineration Festival this year, it begs the question of how musicians with such a clear appetite for destruction can venture down a completely different musical genre avenue! Described as blending jazz and space-rock, this was going to a complete 180 from brutal extreme metal.
The album kicks off with ‘Tutorial’, something with the pace and rhythm of an early 00s emo banger blended with the melody of a video game theme track, alongside the unpredictable nature of jazz. All rolled into one aesthetic and easy to consume package. How light can shine from the blackened hearts of those involved in Tomb Mold. The guitars clean and accessible in their tones, you can really admire the skill and technical prowess needed to pull off some of these crazy complex passages. Easy to fudge behind layers of distortion which will mask over your mistakes; not so much with an all clean tone. So bravo for pulling this off. The bass clearly not happy with sticking to root notes and joins the guitar in churning crazy lick after crazy lick, demonstrating what bass can and should be, locking in elegantly with the metronomic drums. The end result is something deceptively complex and deep, with an undeniable smokey lounge jazzy undertone.
But then, sadly, things start to go downhill. Slowly at first, but then more rapidly. Why? It’s a well-produced product no doubt with just the right amount of studio polish so that it’s clean and crisp but not overly engineered either. The issue is simply repetition.
Listen to one song and it feels like you’ve listened to them all!
There doesn’t seem to be an attempt nor desire to evolve from a melodic point of view, and it becomes difficult to differentiate between each song. The funeral doom giants like Bell Witch produce crazy long songs (‘Mirror Reaper’ coming in at a whopping 83 minutes for instance) yet keep things engaging and intriguing! This is mostly through the use of space, where each deep hitting note is given time to be ingested and properly processed. Here, Daydream Plus just seem to throw guitar lick and bass runs at you willy-nilly. Consequently, it’s difficult to stay engaged after 25 minutes or so. They seem to have the right idea with ‘Undertow’ and ‘Constellation’, both more ambient and easy listening piano led segments to break things up a bit. ‘Lockpick’ also provides a change of pace with just the guitar being the melodic focal point. So there’s certainly scope for more songs like this on future records. Anything to give the listener assurance that ideas aren’t just being recycled and there’s an attempt to progress.
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