‘Chasing Daylight’

By Andrew Duff

With Sister Hazel’s new song, “Your Mistake,” making its rounds on the airwaves, its new CD, “Chasing Daylight,” manages to crank a couple other good tracks for those willing to cough up the dough.

There’s a definite trend toward love songs on the CD, with “Everybody” focusing on the more physical side of romance and still keeping a great, rolling beat.

“You are so sexy my love/ You got me trippin’ over my tongue.”

And the lines that always seem to surprise a laugh out of first listeners: “Like a junkie to a rush/ I’d trade my momma for your touch/ Oh wait that might just be too much/ Well I’d do anything but that.”

Ken Block’s voice does justice to most of the songs, and I found myself tapping along some definitely pop-rock inspired tunes.

As the album progresses, the songs get darker, and unfortunately, crummier. What started as songs celebrating love turns into self-demeaning dribble as the singer runs off his mistakes in life and love. The song “Effortlessly” manages to embarrass anyone in hearing range.

“It shouldn’t be so hard to change the world/ It shouldn’t be so hard just to change your mind.”

While “Chasing Daylight” only spirals off to hell in the last few songs, with a total of 12 songs on the whole CD anyway, Sister Hazel cuts it pretty close from making a genuinely good CD and getting lost in its angst.

I’m not kidding – the last three songs have almost identical, depressing intro guitar riffs. It’s disappointing when you consider that some of the earlier songs actually manage to do something new with their beats, while the final songs sound like a high school Goth crooning to his pet snake.

The CD does include some exclusive Web extras, and when considering a normal CD’s ratio of crap to good music, “Chasing Daylight” still manages to come out on top. If you’re a fan of the band, it’s a decent pickup, but otherwise, give some serious thought before you go chasing after this CD.