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A Sunny Day in Glasgow made waves with their 2007 debut record, the critically lauded Scribble Mural Comic Journal, and the Philadelphia-based act is now preparing to release their second effort, Ashes Grammar. To be released on September 15th, the album finds the band on slightly different terrain. For starters, there is the obvious pressure of following up such an unanticipated bit of success. However, A Sunny Day in Glasgow has also seen their band augmented by new vocalists as well as the cello and piano of new addition Annie Fredrickson, the combination of which has moved the band toward even dreamier realms.
Indeed, “Ashes Grammar / Ashes Maths” (credited as two separate tracks in the liner notes) is almost insubstantial, so thoroughly does it glide through the air. It is hard to not bandy about terms such as “ethereal” and “swirling” with a song like this, but there is more to A Sunny Day in Glasgow’s performance than those platitudinous adjectives seem to imply. Hiding behind the foreground of this track is a crunchy lo-fi edge which sets it apart from the work of would-be peers in the post-shoegaze movement. Sure, that subgenre’s stacked, reverb sopped vocals are in evidence, but so is a greater concern for gradual dynamics than the exponents of that sound were ever preoccupied with. This interplay between the feathery and weighted, melody and cacophony, withholding and catharsis–that is what a song like this is all about, and it seems like something A Sunny Day in Glasgow are grasping with increasing ease.
(13 votes, average: 7.54 out of 10)
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August 18th, 2009 at 7:34 am
Not cutting it for me this year. I’m looking for authenticity and guts.