Greg Laswell
How the Day Sounds
Vanguard Records
Greg Laswell’s past few years can be summed up with his debut album and this EP. The bridge between Through Toledo and his next full-length album coming out July 8, How the Day Sounds is a beautiful wake-up call for anyone who has gone through a divorce. If you heard Laswell’s debut, you heard a broken man who was fighting to figure out what to do next – How the Day Sounds is the breakthrough for Laswell.
The title track opens the EP with a renewal, Laswell realizing that everything will be okay and the future is brighter than ever. Laswell muses, “everything that I knew of love/ I was a long, long way off/ …Join me in welcoming the sun/ It’s much brighter than the night I hid in/ And I think I like how the day sounds/…Through this new song.”
“High and Low” is a gorgeous anthem to the manic depression that can accompany the feelings associated with breaking up. “Found a letter from a man I might have met/ Addressed to you/ and I’ll steal the words he ended with: ‘I miss you’/ And I do/ Miss you/ and I do look high and low for yesterday.” The best part of the song is that two-and-a-half minutes in, it completely changes from an atmospheric piano ballad to a grander, almost Coldplay-esque ballad with an orchestra (the Edison String Section, to be exact).
How the Day Sounds is the perfect therapy session for anyone going through a divorce. Greg Laswell has made a 24-minute awakening for himself and for the rest of us; we get to reap the benefits. It’s like the extra disc to Beck’s Sea Change and well worth the listen.
Greg Laswell: http://www.greglaswell.com
