Howie Day: Australia : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Howie Day is a young songwriter from Maine who's creating a buzz by performing only with a guitar and some effects pedals. He plays a riff, samples and loops it, and then strums and sings over his instant, virtually live accompaniment. First independently released in 2000, his debut, Australia, rarely reflects that homespun mix of folk and DIY tech: Most of it was recorded conventionally with mundane musicians, and it's neither a polished, fully realized studio work, nor does it represent what the guy can do in person. With a band behind him, Day loses soulfulness, and his influences (Jeff Buckley, David Gray, Oasis) become too obvious. Still, Australia shows off some of Day's precocious compositional skills and his emotionally naked presence. On "Kristina," which he plays solo, as he does in person, this one-man emo machine gently entangles his voice with echoes of himself to ethereal effect. It's there that Day's possibilities reveal themselves.

BARRY WALTERS
(RS # 901 - July 2, 2002)