Daylight Breaking

by Johnny LoftusIts glossy paperboard packaging, lyric book full of moody pen and ink renderings, and dingy duotint photography mark Daylight Breaking as No Motiv's serious album. But as things turn out, the Cali-based quartet has made something more complicated and less effective -- a transition album that never seems to go anywhere. No Motiv has shifted up its rhythm section and filled out its sound since 2001's Diagram for Healing. There are still hooks here, but they're solidly pinned through vocalist Jeremy Palaszewski's bleeding heart. Rousing choruses string you in, but the verses? Well, they just about string you up. "One razor length away from blade to skin," Palaszewski sings in "Death in Numbers." Handling production on their own, No Motiv drench these dark thoughts in studio gauze. But instead of making all that soul-searching more sincere, the gloss deadens Daylight Breaking's effectiveness. The hooks of "Robot Eyes" and lead single "Into the Darkness" have trouble making a dent, the album's gloomy midsection passes by like a series of obviously very serious yet largely indistinct Rorschach inkblots, and weaker material, like the workmanlike Bad Religion-ish punk-pop of "Brand New Day" or "Laid to Rest"'s sound-alike soaring vocals, just seem like filler. "Grey Notes Fall" and the strong opener, "Independence Day," do find a path through the album's murky mope-punk trees and emotional thorn bushes. But unlike the Alkaline Trio -- whose Good Mourning balanced its dour, blood-spattered lyrics with a droll sense of dark humor and memorable songs -- No Motiv seems caught up in a formless growth-spurt funk, unsure of the direction ahead. Fans of the Vagrant label or the group's earlier work might find some touchstones in Daylight Breaking's gloom. But overall it feels like a serviceable yet oddly nondescript jumble of the usual emo or punk revivalist puzzle pieces.