Albums

Album Review: Sunny Day Sets Fire

[Album: Summer Palace]
[Label: IAMSOUND Records]

Sunny Day Sets Fire are an internationally-gathered collective of accomplished musicians with members from Hong Kong, Italy, Sardinia, Canada and London. ‘Summer Palace’, their first full-length album, was released last month and is a hefty fourteen tracks long.

A bright xylophone opens this album in ‘Wilderness’, an upbeat, summery display of the band’s talents with visually fantastical lyrics. This, and next track ‘Strangers’, perfectly showcase and establish the band’s cocksure sound of blazing confidence and lustrous vocal layering (which is very close to what I guess The Beach Boys would sound like if they had access to modern recording and producing facilities and couldn’t write lyrics so well).

Having said that, the lyrics aren’t awful. They just take a definite back seat in the process, particularly in third track ‘Teenagers Talking’, during which singer Mauro’s vocals drift into each other without much definition, therefore giving much more precedence to the instrumentation and overall “sound”.

This seems to be a running trend throughout the album, where “sound” often becomes more important than the song. Mostly the songs begin well, quickly introducing quirky and interesting ideas, almost becoming really enjoyable but then not quite making it because the band feel it necessary to end every song with a cacophony of guitars. This is exemplified best in ‘Smallest Heart On Earth’, which starts well but predictably descends into thick guitars. This attempt to show off their talents as multi-instrumentalists soon becomes tiresome as the listener is reminded of it for the last minute and a half of every single song.

Without a doubt the stand out track on the album is ‘Siamese’ with solitary female of the group, Onyee, on vocals and only a muffled piano for support. Placing less importance on the instruments like this allows her celestial vocals to beautifully lead the lullaby sound of this song, which is a welcome respite from the unyieldingly constant barrage of guitar on the rest of the album.

Variety is a precious thing and an attention to detail even more so, but the band seem happy to ignore subtlety and storm on through most of the album in a blur of nondescript lyrics and recycled musical ideas, making closing track ‘Lack Of View’ sound incredibly familiar.

For Fans Of: Architecture In Helsinki, The Flaming Lips, Annemarie

Band Link:
Sunny Day Sets Fire

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