February 23, 2009

Album Review: Sunny Day Sets Fire

Summer Palace

7 / 10 Facts about this album:
Sunny Day Real Estate are Mauro (vocals/guitar), Onyee (synths/drums), Max (guitar), Ed (bass/synths) and Matthew (drums)
They are not a tribute to either Sunny Day Real Estate or Boy Sets Fire
times.
Sunny Day Sets Fire released their first single, Brainless, in 2006

Album review:
Right: an entire review without mentioning the weather. Here goes. Coming variously from the UK, Italy, Canada and Hong Kong has certainly given these bliss-poppers a fair few influences to ‘borrow’. Whether slipping The Flaming Lips’ euphoria into the morning glory of ‘Teenagers Talking’ or letting ‘Mandarins’ fold over itself in a palimpsest of glittering guitars and childlike enthusiasm like Band Of Horses let loose in a Lego shop, when Onyee coos “Please accept my apologies/I have too much adrenaline” on ‘Adrenaline’ you know she’s sincere. And how did they make ‘Wilderness’ sound boundlessly euphoric but not cloying and annoying and ‘Lack Of View’ deliciously sleepy but not soporific? They must be wizards, snow joke.

Ben Patashnik

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