Sunny Day Real Estate
How It Feels To Be Something On
»
Sunny Day Real Estate
How It Feels To Be Something On
Sub Pop, 1998
RiYL: Mid-period U2, Jane's Addiction's Ritual De Lo Habitual, Jeff Buckley |
Driven by the power of Jeremy Enigk's emotional, translucent voice and a rock-steady rhythm section that later joined Foo Fighters, Sunny Day's anthemic rock laid the blueprint for the "emo-core" explosion that detonated after the band broke up in 1995. But too often the band settled for just enough creativity to keep listeners intrigued. It was clear there was more to Sunny Day Real Estate than just two albums could reveal.
With a renewed commitment to its music, Sunny Day Real Estate makes an astonishing creative leap forward on its third album How It Feels To Be Something On. Singlehandedly sounding light years ahead of both alternative rock and post-punk fare, the band has torn up its previous playbook and attacked anew.
Most of the tracks here owe some basis to the band's hard rock colleagues, I hear elements of Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Nirvana in songs such as the haunting "Pillars" and "100 Million." But one can also hear Nick Drake's weepy acoustic folk at the beginning of "Every Shining Time You Arrive" and the album's title track, which, although far from obvious, are two of Sunny Day's most listener-friendly compositions to date.
Melody is at the forefront. The galloping mantra "The Prophet" channels the Beatles into the bodies of U2, while "Guitar And Video Games" recalls Pink Floyd at its most urgent. The grandiosity of some tracks may turn off fans of the band's more stripped-down material, but if anything, SDRE sounds even more empassioned now than before.
Structurally, the band is barely recognizable from its past incarnation. Songs no longer need to rely on one riff or the standard soft-then-loud mentality. Instead, these tracks move in unexpected directions and end abruptly, often accented by subtle keyboard or string flourishes. Ex-Mommyheads bassist Jeff Palmer and drummer William Goldsmith outdo themselves with motoric precision, while Enigk and guitarist Dan Hoerner's melodies rip at the heart without relieving it completely.
Enigk's voice, soaring and glorious, serves as the emotional center of the music. His high-octave register allows him to sound positively angelic for the first half of the beautiful "Days Were Golden" and the blissed-out middle of "100 Million" but gut-wrenching and grief-stricken in the harsher sections of "Pillars" and "Two Promises." Either way, the band has the uncanny ability to render eyes moist at any volume.
One of 1998's most impressive releases and arguably the most satisfying comeback of any band in the '90s, Something demonstrates many times over the innovation at which Sunny Day Real Estate had previously only intimated. Essential.
JONATHAN COHEN | Jonathan Cohen co-created Nude As The News with his Indiana University mates Troy Carpenter and Ben French. When not traversing the globe for business and pleasure, he holds down the fort as a senior editor for Billboard in New York. Stop him and he just may ask, "what for lunch?"