Grandaddy
Sumday

THE REVIEW

A cohesive album is not necessarily monotonous; a varied one is not necessarily disjointed.

The previous work by Grandaddy, The Sophtware Slump, is one of those albums – rare masterpieces – that, without falling into repetition, express a specific concept, innovative in its inspiration and themes (in this case, the collapse of technology expressed by the strange lo-fi sounds of the rockers from Modesto, CA).

The Sophtware Slump is a masterpiece; Sumday is not.
Just to be clear.
It's a good album, but it’s not the one with which the five bearded "grandpas" write their page in the history of music.

All the excellent ingredients of their indie rock are present: gentle distortions, the slight Pavement-like slacker vibe (to which, in my opinion, they are superior, albeit indebted), the repetitive yet celestial scales of the keyboard, and above all, Jason Lytle's voice – a light and inventive timbre.
What is missing, indeed, is the invention that one might expect from their brilliance.

The tracks, especially in the first part (I'm On Standby, The Go In The Go-For-It, The Group Who Couldn't Say, Lost On Yer Merry Way), follow one another, somewhat (I hate to say it) flatly reproducing the formula that The Sophtware Slump – but also the first, Under The Western Freeway – hinted at without ever forcing it.

The album recovers a bit in the second half, after El Caminos In The West, which together with the beautiful opening track Now It's On fully rewrites the vibrancy of the group’s Californian spirit, and especially with Saddest Vacant Lot In All The World (when a melody is so simple it moves you) and The Warming Sun – the only true invention of the album.

For those who adore Grandaddy like I do, in short, Sumday is a must. In the context of their group history, however, it will certainly not be the "day of reckoning".