Sunny Day Roses - "bLOOMsHINe!"
Sunny Day Roses - "bLOOMsHINe!" Available through Marathon RecordsThose of you who recall Farewell to Juliet and their lush CD, Echoes of Laughter , should be scratching your collective heads right about now, asking yourself, "Whatever happened to x."P.O. Box 1222
El Segundo, CA
90245-6222
The answer is, an indefinite hiatus, and another project, with some of your favorite cast members and some newcomers as well. This time around, the lineup is Jonathan Edwards on drums, Lewis Richey on guitars, Suki Chaney singing, and Jeff Elbel on guitars and BGV's.
The results are twenty-two tracks of segued unexpected turns, and then returns to the band's mainstay sound: driving rhythms, Suki's clean, crisp, bell-shaped voice singing of spiritual things spiritually, and Elbel's Marathon -drenched guitars, as much the center of the action as Derri Daugherty 's guitars are for The Choir.
Elbel can, at times, wear his influences near his cuffs, borrowing and returning vintage Alex Lifeson licks from the Middletown Dreams era of Rush. But just when you think you've got him pegged, up pops an acoustic groove thing that would do Dave Navarro proud. Or something equally off the meter.
The bottom line is that rock has been a lot of things at a lot of times, and just as there was a time when it was about show and makeup, there was a time when is was about orchestration and skill, as much as feel. Most of VoG's coverage goes to bands that either "feel" very well as artists or flex their punk tattoos in defiance of such. Very precious few are "skill" bands, bands who, while not ignoring emotion or song, take the tedious time to construct something around it all. Sunny Day Roses is such a band - a rarity, an alternative.
Well worth the money - both for the noise and for the cover art by Doug TenNapel , alone.
- David Vanderpoel