Daylight – Sinking

Hot Water Music are having a revival, although it’s not Hot Water Music doing it. While yes, they do the odd reunion show here and there – the Floridian four piece are essentially done (at least for now), but their sound and influence has been making waves in the independent punk scene for years and never has it been more prevalent than in the past year or so. Amidst the dribble of nondescript dance/pop/crunkcore shit that is being constantly spat out and forced upon the unsuspecting masses there seems to always be one Hot Water Music influenced band sitting in the corner – slowly and steadily obtaining the attention of everyone around it. This gives you a new lease on gruff emotional punk of the mid-nineties and enables us to be treated to albums like Polar Bear Club‘s Sometimes Things Just Disappear and Chasing Hamburg, Make Do and Mend‘s Bodies of Water and Over Stars and Gutters‘ Consider This Your Curse. Now, you can add Pennsylvania’s Daylight to the ever growing list of Hot Water Musicinfluenced bands with their debut EP, Sinking.

At just under sixteen minutes, Sinking‘s five songs are a nice burst of emotion and sincerity amongst a sometimes bland sea of mediocrity. The band is heavy on their influences and wear them proudly on their sleeves, creating a sound that features gruff, emotional punk in a post-hardcore mix. The vocals are easily the most distinctive element of the band’s sound and jump out from the opening second of Enough as the vocalists passionately screams “Speak Up, I’m Listening.” There is a simply honesty in the delivery, a duality of controlled anger and free-flowing anger as he sings “Can’t take anymore/There’s nothing that I love / Life is way too short, just not short enough.” He channels Chuck Ragan along with the singer of Polar Bear Club and sings with a sense of urgency and desperation, however there is more toDaylight than just the vocals.

The musicianship sparkles with an electricity and intensity and pulls from more than just the post-hardcore soundscape. The flowing intro The Best sounds like a riff from Brand New‘s The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me while the bass-heavy breakdown of that same song points more towards Off With Their Heads; and somehow, I don’t know how exactly, You’re Not My Father sounds like a heavierStarting Line – even in the vocal department at the start of the song. All of this creates an intriguing structure in Daylight as the sounds pulse with an electricity and energy unlike most releases out there and it does it all with a slight sense of diversity too.

Fans of Hot Water Music and Over Stars and Gutters will definitely find a nice reprieve in the EP as Sinking makes Daylight a band to keep an eye out for; the only problem that may pop up is by the time they come out with a new full length, there is a chance that I would’ve forgotten about Sinking. But at least then it’ll give me a chance to re-discover a good band again.