Sunny Day Real Estate
How It Fels To Be Something On

THE REVIEW

Releasing an album after two masterpieces like "Diary" and "LP2" is certainly not easy. But it is also true that if your band is called Sunny Day Real Estate, the final goal can't be that far. Indeed, we aren't at the level of the two predecessors, but we are getting close, and "How It Feels To Be Something On", released 13 years ago now, is one of those works that makes Sunny Day Real Estate one of the bands that has been most sorely missed in the past decade (let's add the complete decline of their genre).

This album is similar to the previous ones, we still find dreamy atmospheres, though darker and more melancholic, and a particular fragility in all the instrumental parts, while the vocals are more defined and powerful than in the two previous albums.  We also find experimentation, acoustic guitars that weren't heard in the first two albums (the splendid "Every Shining Time You Arrive" is an example),  a sprinkling of Grunge here and there (the band is from Seattle)  especially in tracks like "Pillars" and "Roses In Water", and also what seems to be a tribal chant on the hypnotic melody of "The Prophet".  The title track seems like it came out of "LP2", which is certainly a positive thing.

In conclusion, "How It Feels To Be Something On" is a complete album, with various external influences mixed with the Indiemo that disappeared at the beginning of this century, leaving a great void. Inferior to the previous works but not so much as to not be considered a masterpiece.