Grandaddy: Sumday : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Little indie-rock songs that pack a punch jason lytle of grandaddy has a gift for squeezing big themes into small-scale subjects. On Sumday, he expands this ability beyond the everyday metaphysics of his poetry to the music itself, pulling indie-rock symphonies out of the Modesto, California, quintet's poppiest little tunes. And while the melodies have grown catchier and the arrangements more focused, Lytle has leapt into the lyrical big leagues with unassuming songs about entropy and epiphany. On "The Group Who Couldn't Say," he tells the story of salespeople who win a trip to the country and find themselves speechless when encountering the great outdoors. Lytle sighs as the band captures the still wonder of the moment with a spine-tingling bath of rural space-rock beauty: "Her drag-and-click had never yielded anything as perfect as a dragonfly."

BARRY WALTERS
(RS 924, June 12, 2003)