All Day, Everyday - A Very Sad Album

​All Day, Everyday

​A Very Sad Album
self-released; 2015

3.5 out of 5

By Ted Rogen

All Day, Everyday is the solo project of Dagur (Day) Gudmundsson. He recently released A Very Sad Album which is a  complete DIY effort and the results are pretty impressive most of the time.

A Very Sad Album melds genres like shoegaze, art-rock and pop into a dark haze of music that I could see a lot of people enjoying. At his best I was reminded of a band like Sonic Youth but also heard elements of bands like Guided by Voices, Deerhunter and Yo La Tengo.

He opens with the ironically titled “Feeling Good” which is more or less an intro that contains scattered shards of feedback and his vocals. It’s a great opener with inventive sounds and a solid vocal melody. He sings “I don't know what it is but nothing feels good anymore The things that should feel good Well they just don't”

“A Very Sad Song” is a fleshed out song with a steady beat and waves of guitar. Some of the Sonic Youth-esque moments peek their head towards the end with a swirling tunnel of white noise. “The Second Amendment” is another solid track that is relatively straightforward indie rock that is catchy. There are minor production issues on this track such as the guitars being too low but the vocals still carry the song. On “The Force is Strong With This One” he implements a lot of electronic percussive elements which I could argue were a bit too prominent in this track. Nonetheless it gives the track a different feel from the songs that preceded it.

On the other end of the spectrum is “A Side of Broken Bones” which is completely free of percussive elements. Comparisons could be made to My Bloody Valentine on this track. He closes with “Marionette” which had some of the most poetic and ambiguous lyrics. He sings “Dark shapes, and silhouettes The paint is splattered on the floor All over my clothes, all over the door I try not to understand The things I try, the things I do I do to get away from you”

A Very Sad Album is a solid effort with some mishaps and not every song was a hit out of the park but I thought Gudmundsson was able to connect the ten songs. Recommended. ​

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