When the Day Leaves, the new album from Valley Maker, is released through Frenchkiss Records. After a decade of living in Seattle, Austin Crane and his wife Emily returned to their native home of South Carolina. When The Day Leaves is a self portrait of dreams, desires and regrets, ideals and anxieties that came with looming questions from their move such as what did it mean to return to a Southern city marked by enduring economic and racial divides, and what would it be like to restore a century-old home so overgrown it had become a neighbourhood punchline, to plant new roots in a place some had written off...

Valley Maker give us a slice of American indie folk on their new LP, When the Day Leaves. On one level I rather enjoyed this. But the cracks began to appear on repeat listens. There's little in the way of original material. It felt a little like they were just going though the motions. The music feels a little lazy and the vocal performances are void of any emotion or character.

It's a by-the-numbers collection of rather bland songs. That's not to say that it's a poor album, it's just that I heard nothing here that would make me want to recommend it and once I've finished reviewing it it's unlikely that I'll return to it again in the future.

5

Nick Smithson