It's a bit late for 2006 accolades, but Daylight's for the Birds's debut would be in the running for the Most Innocuous Album of the Year award. Comprised mostly of former OnAirLibrary! and Boggs members, Daylight's founding members Jay Giampietro and Phillip Wann fluff up their previous bands' more experimental sounds, a move made easy with the help of Amanda Garrett's ethereal vocals. (On!Air!'s Claudia Deheza, the group's original vocalist, left the band to pursue other projects, despite providing vocals for many of the tracks here.) Although titled Trouble Everywhere, the group's debut lacks any sort of nervous tension, instead retreating into bucolic jam sessions and detached cooing. While not tackling the most ambitious soundscapes, Daylight's proudly keep their heads in the clouds long enough to cull some dishy, albeit homogenous, numbers.
Part of Trouble's homogeneity stems from the band's rote dedication to dream pop. Never ruffling feathers with a proactive riff or overly catchy melody, any flirtation with other genres occurs incidentally. Initially opener "To No One" may sound like shoegaze with all those looped synths over a droning bassline, but an emotive chorus punches gaping holes in the song's wall of sound. Similarly, "Bad Sleep Well" starts on a stern drum fill and moody guitar chords only to have the seemingly imminent noise-rock blowup tempered by passive-aggressive vocal distortion and a brass section cacophony that's more effete than enraged.
All limits considered, Trouble's not necessarily a snooze-a-thon, at least in the pejorative sense. The aforementioned chorus to "To No One" may dash the song's shoegaze elements, but much of the album thrives on such show-stopping moments. After Garrett lulls you to sleep for the album's first half, Wann delivers deadpan vocals on the title track, complementing Garrett's soothing songs and playing the Lou Reed to her Nico. As if in response, the band's dreamscape briefly turns to nightmare on the eerily sparse and askew ballad "Try", a track that, at its darkest, resembles the psychosis of My Brightest Diamond. Unfortunately, that's about as far as the band veers from its tried and true formula. If every song had a chord progression as interesting as "Worlds Apart", the lone exception to the handful of starry-eyed bombs here, Trouble's zonked out demeanor would be vindicated. As is, Trouble steers clear of any damning errors or blatant mimicry, but the result's sadly too safe and vanilla for a band that shows flashes of so much more.
