Honeycut - The Day I Turned To Glass
I’ll just come out and say it: The Day I Turned to Glass is fantastic. Honeycut has crafted an album here that molds a myriad of styles into an eclectic, fascinating sound that is truly their own. But what is perhaps most impressive about this album is Honeycut’s ability to create something so varied and creative that at the same time is completely accessible and immediately familiar. Even when three or four styles are being combined in a wholly original and unexpected fashion, the music still feels entirely coherent and fully realized.
To say that Honeycut’s influences are diverse is certainly an understatement. As the album progresses, splashes of soul, funk, jazz, techno, bossa nova, pop, ambient, and rock, among others, come up, flowing together in unexpected, but incredibly pleasing ways. But what is perhaps most fascinating about the album is its apparent inability to fix itself on any of these styles. The focus of the songs is constantly shifting and evolving, bringing in new elements and discarding old ones long before they become stale. This may sound jarring, but Honeycut does it with such a smooth flow and such assuredness that the music never once loses you over the course of the album’s twelve songs.
The star of the show is unquestionably Hervé Salters, who provides keyboards, displaying a remarkable versatility with the instrument. Lulling, sweeping chords are accompanied by sharp, angular riffs and extremely funky basslines, making a rich milieu where one never knows what will come next, but when it does come it always seems perfectly natural and accessible. Bart Davenport’s distinct vocals, meanwhile, come in a confident, soulful croon, one of the only constants throughout the album, and Tony Sevener’s live, played-by-hand MIDI Production Center provides the drumbeats. Live horns and strings are also mixed in, contrasting the often electronic feel in a way that feels just as natural and exciting as the band’s constant genre mixing.
The songs themselves run a gamut of moods almost as wide-ranging as the styles they employ. The dark and funky title track, the simultaneously smooth and angular “Tough Kid”, a lush rock/pop number called “Shadows” and the horn-filled, Prince-inspired R&B of “Crowded Avenue” are the standout tracks, and all of them only reveal more and more subtle and often wonderful touches with each listen. Not all of the tracks are quite up to the standard of those four, but none of them are by any means weak and absolutely none of the album sounds out of place or like filler.
Honeycut, ultimately, almost defies classification. They’re extremely fun (often danceable, even), endlessly creative, and at the same time sound organic and electronic. It all adds up to a hugely enjoyable album that can be played through almost endlessly without losing its charm and makes a good soundtrack to almost any occasion or mood. It gets my vote for the best album of 2006, and if you give it a listen, I think it’ll at least make your top ten.
-Ben Stevens