Days Like These – Inventure / 2005 Lobster Records / 12 Tracks / http://www.daysliketheseband.com / http://www.lobsterrecords.com / Reviewed 22 October 2005

“Caution” really is the first major move away from the Days Like These sound; in fact, the presence of horns during the track and the full sound really makes this sound more like a ska track than anything else previous or post that Days Like these have put out. Starting out “Justify” with an electronic sound that sounds right out of a Rush album, the eighties-infused sound of Days Like These really takes a page from Head Automatic and Panic at The Disco to really make a compelling rock track. Really painting “Justify” with a hair-metal brush at times, the existence of this track shows Days Like These as a band that can take a much-maligned form of music and really run with it, subjugating it to their own general sound.

The much more sedate and carefully-constructed “Generation Rx” seems to have a beat almost wholly constructed by sequencers, creating an interesting sound that is in direct conflict with the organic guitar that plays at the upper edges of the track. Keeping a quick tempo for their “Like Bombs”, Days Like These tie together a harder brand of rock with piano and bongos to make for a fun style of Frankenstein’s monster. Continuing their tour of the world, the Santana-esque mixture of Latin and reggae influences for their “Charmed” ensures that they, much like aural relations Lenny Kravitz and Matchbox 20 (on this track, anyways) will get high rotation on rock radio.

Angus Cooke and Nick Rucker (the producers of “Inventure”) really give this album an eighties vibe without making Days Like These sound like The Darkness (or any of those other schmaltzy hair-rock bands); the music on “Invenutre” has the energy of current music while having the emotional content of bands from years before (like Eddie Money and Van Halen). When the band takes that strong step forward with “Control Freak” at the beginning of the disc, one knows that the band is destined for greatness. While the track may not have the nuanced sound or the continually shifting styles of other track, “Control Freak” nonetheless has the quality of bringing in listeners by the barrelful. “Inventure” is really what should result when six individuals coming from different styles create a band; there is cohesion through the tracks, but enough in the way of differing sounds to keep the energy that started out “Inventure” going. Interesting, but never scattershot or weak.

Top Tracks: Help Wanted, Somehow Saturn

Rating: 6.1/10

[JMcQ]