Rani Arbo &
daisy mayhem

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Valley Advocate Review of Some Bright Morning

Categorizing daisy mayhem’s music is a challenge. Arbo loves gospel with a secular tinge, which one hears to beautiful effect on “Crossing the Bar,” her scoring of the famed Tennyson poem. But how do we pigeonhole a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Reason to Believe” that’s what The Boss might have done if he was a little bit country? Or Anand Nayak’s not-quite-Chicago/not-quite-Delta electric blues on “Johnny Brown”? Or “Fall River,” which sounds more rural Tennessee than urban Massachusetts? And let’s give a nod to singer/songwriter folk traditions. Arbo’s “Bridges” muses on the parallel destruction done by Hurricane Irene and the dissolution of a friend’s marriage, and “Miami Moon” honors a departed neighbor who loved to dance. Try to get the chorus of the latter out of your head. Give up? Complete surrender is my prescription for everything on this fine album.

- Rob Weir, Valley Advocate, May 2012