New Day with New Possibilities

Album review

The indie pop group's second album for leader Sonny Smith's own Rocks in Your Head Records, New Day with New Possibilities finds Sonny & the Sunsets revisiting the lonesome country stylings of 2012's Longtime Companion. A more playful, pastiche-inclined outing, New Day with New Possibilities was inspired by the isolation of an intended painting retreat rather than by a difficult breakup. It announces its status at the outset with "The Lonely Men," a solemn acoustic guitar tune that builds an alt-country combo with the gradual addition of strings, pedal steel (by Joe Goldmark), and a classic country rhythm section. Smith quickly diverges into more lighthearted territory with "Earl & His Girl," a bouncy narrative tale about a bounty hunter, an abuser, and his loyal girlfriend. Vocal harmonies help make the object of his sympathies a presence throughout the song, even after the narrator is shot, left in a ditch for over a week, abandoned by his talking horse, and obliged to recover on Lonely Mountain. Another catchy and bittersweet cowboy fantasy, "Ride the Dark Trail" (which also makes reference to "the lonely mountains"), imagines a life of companionship in elaborate, long-lasting detail. Elsewhere, tracks like "Palm Reader" and "Love Obsession" give a countrified veneer to power pop balladry, as Smith never quite shakes his '60s pop instincts here. The album closes on "The Letter," a spare acoustic track that sees a New Day with New Possibilities -- at least once the intended recipient reads his letter. "Did you drop it on the ground?/Or let it sit around?"

© Marcy Donelson /TiVo