It isn't clear which "Camden" Trouble Everyday are referring to in the title of the opening cut on their debut album, Days vs. Nights. The post-punk parvenus find the majority of their musical roots across the Atlantic-- aping all of the usual post-punk suspects with their peppy breed of pellucid, chorus-driven rock-- but Trouble Everyday hail from Philadelphia, just over the river from Camden, N.J. Either way, Trouble Everyday waste no time laying their strengths out on the table. The track nicely sets the tone for this taut collection as crunchy but limpid guitars steer the song toward a classic two-word chorus: "Red light", brays vocalist Kyle Costill repeatedly over a set of tension-relieving change-ups. The song-- like Days vs. Nights as a whole-- is constructed with familiar materials: urgent eighth-note guitar attacks, syncopated vocal yelps, and jumpy melodic bass lines. But these seemingly run-of-the-mill source elements are deftly handled and transformed into something potent by near-perfect mixing and the band's earnestness.
Trouble Everyday are all about distillation: At under a half-hour, Days vs. Nights economically maneuvers through 11 songs, each complete with air-tight structure and an endlessly hummable refrain. Although derivative to the point of being almost obtrusive, these songs are uniformly catchy-- and ain't that the bottom line? Days vs. Nights hits all the major touchstones, cavorting from infectious two-minute buzz of "Kids (Make a Living)" to the dirgeful, Joy Division-style post-punk of "Code Word" to the scuzzed-up sensitive guy new wave of "(Close Enough to Call it) Even". But Trouble Everyday's influences extend beyond the usual anglophilic tributes to include a number of American bands. "Written in Snakes"-- with its shout-sung lyrics and jammy, open-sounding recording quality-- is reminiscent of Lonesome Crowded West-era Modest Mouse. And songs like the aforementioned "Code Word" owe not only their stylistic founding fathers, but also latter-day torchbearers such as The Rapture and Interpol.
As strange as it may sound, without those modern heirs a band like Trouble Everyday might not be enjoying the attention they're getting. For post-punk revivalists-- even those as adroit as Trouble Everyday-- it's best of times, worst of times: The cause cl\x8Fbre of bands like The Strokes and Franz Ferdinand means increased exposure for but also an inevitable (and, in this case, unjust) backlash against other purveyors of the form. Trouble Everyday even offer what could be construed as acknowledgment of this problem when on "Camden", Costill sings, "Hey you, what you think about the new fad?" Unfortunately, Costill's ironic salvo will likely do little to stop the knee-jerk reactions against his band.
