Howie Day - Sound the Alarm Review

Posted by Michael James on 09.19.2009

Howie Day wouldn't be the first artist to get a sales boost from negative headlines. But if his career plays out that way, he just might be the most deserving.

In the late 90s, I somehow managed to land an A&R internship at a major record labels. We faced a dilemma—one of the label’s acts, Feeder, had some minor hits (most notably the song “High”) but hadn’t really been able to break through to the United States audience despite their obvious talent. No one could figure out a marketing hook to break them. They didn’t have sex with starlets, tear up hotel rooms or beef with other bands. Rock-n-roll can be a hard place for regular guys and girls who just happened to be blessed with more talent than most. It can be pretty hard for a musician to stand out from the crowd. After all, there are only so many chords, turns of phrase and lyrical themes.

When Howie Day first debuted with the excellent Australia, he seemed destined to be another overlooked singer-songwriter. He failed to get any real commercial traction despite the fact that the album was populated with catchy singles like “Sorry So Sorry” and “Ghost”. His follow up, 2003’s Stop All the World Now didn’t fare much better, topping out at #46 on the Billboard charts. In 2004 he managed to break out from the faceless masses in a less than auspicious way, first allegedly locking a female fan in the bathroom of his tour bus and then being arrested for being disorderly on a flight. A rehab stint quickly followed, and Day seemed on his way to achieving renown, albeit for all the wrong reasons.

Six years later and presumably back on a positive path, Day is back with a strong third effort, Sound the Alarm. While it remains to be seen what effect his mid-decade adventures bring him some perverse commercial success, the album continues his streak of winning works.



1- So Stung
2- Weightless
3- Longest Night
4- 40 Hours
5- Be There
6- Everyone Loves to Love a Lie
7- Undressed
8- Sound the Alarm
9- No Longer What You Require
10- Postcard from Mars
11- Counting on Me

The album’s opener, “So Stung” is a beautiful atmospheric ballad featuring the lyrical reverb and electronic flourishes that are a highlight of Day’s best work. The opening lyrics are particularly poignant in light of his recent misadventures: “Will you overcome this impression/when the life that you lead, is second guessing me?” As with most singer-songwriters, Day traffics mostly in love songs and romance. However, his gift for melody and expressive vocal tone elevates songs such as “Weightless,” which might otherwise come off as trite.

Oddly, Day’s singing voice has changed subtly from his earlier albums, particularly Australia. Previously, his voice had a higher pitch and slightly tone which often made him sound like a mellower version of Our Lady Peace’s Raine Maida. Now, however, his voice has deepened considerably, giving his songs a more traditional sound.

However, Day’s new vocal style doesn’t mean he escapes comparisons to other artists however. In fact, I continuously found myself latching on to similarities between Day and other artists, whether vocally or in terms of songwriting. The simple piano opening to “Everyone Loves to Love a Lie” cribs a melody from a Billy Joel song which I have been driving myself nuts trying to figure out. Elsewhere, the “Longest Night” features a big chorus which would seem right at home on a power ballad from David Cook, Daughtry, or another American Idol rocker-du-jour. My notes on the album are littered with references to such disparate artists as Matthew Sweet, The Beatles, Hanson and Evan & Jaron, which stands as a testament to the diverse sounds on Sound the Alarm.

The album’s most memorable moment is “40 Hours,” which finds Day walking the dark streets ruminating over a fight with his girlfriend. The unadorned acoustic guitar and slight echo perfectly capture the sadness of wondering what went wrong, particularly when combined with lyrics like: “The shadow on the wall/is looking down from 10 feet tall/And I wonder what it sees/As I stumble through the streets/ To never feel alone/It seemed written down in stone/but now it’s all I can do/to try and forget her.”



Not all of Day’s songwriting is as crisp. While “Undressed” is catchy, I can’t fully appreciate a song that features the ludicrous refrain “I must confess/I like us best/ undressed.” “No Longer What You Require,” otherwise a beautiful ballad, is dragged down by the repeated use of back-to-back rhyming lines seems even more amateurish due to clumsy couplets like “Standing still/as the temperature kills/the summer’s thrills.” Finally, "Be There" starts off promising before straying too far into a hokey-ish "message" song.

However, Sound the Alarm’s few flaws are easily forgiven, as they are largely outnumbered by high points like the yearning title track, in which Day incorporates a beautiful falsetto. No matter how colorful Day’s recent past, Sound the Alarm may not give Day a mainstream breakthrough—in fact, it only debuted at #87. That’s a shame, because Day is a true talent deserves much better. Instead, I’ll just cross my fingers and hope that he doesn’t end up like Feeder, who, incidentally, never released another album stateside.

If you’re like me, most of your music ends up in an endless .mp3 “shuffle.” In order to preserve your valuable disk space, here’s what’s Ipod-worthy from Sound the Alarm:

“So Stung”, “Weightless”, “Longest Night”, “"Undressed", 40 Hours”, “Everyone Loves to Love a Lie”, “Sound the Alarm”, “Counting on Me”

The 411: Sound the Alarm is a return to form for Howie Day, and hopefully his career is on the verge of rising to new heights. At his best, Day crafts beautiful pop songs which subtly incorporate interesting electronic elements and vocal effects which only accent his strong voice and lyrics. Tracks like "So Stung" and "40 Hours" instantly become some of the best in his catalog. He deserves a bigger audience.

Final Score:  7.5   [ Good ]