Broken Day formed here in Champaign a year ago this spring. They tout themselves as a band that incorporates many styles (centralizing on pop, rock, and alternative) in an effort to garner mass appeal. Within the past year they have recorded and produced their first full-length, self-titled album. The band has established a steady rotation of appearances in the area with past visits to the Canopy Club and Cowboy Monkey.
To their credit they put together an album that appeals to a vast audience (which they claim to target) with it’s easily accessible songs. The album starts strong with the catchy, polished, radio-friendly “No Win Situation.” The opener follows with “The Broken Hearted” and “Sway,” both solid tracks, but the record hits a lull towards the middle of its composition. Songs “Believe,” “Radio,” and “Existence” all suffer from unoriginality, as they presenting typical issues already sufficiently covered by hordes of other songwriters.
The chorus of “Believe” offers one of the weakest lines on the album: “You’re all I want, you’re all I need, and all I’m asking, is for you to believe in me.” “Radio” crosses the line of good taste when it becomes more obnoxious than catchy. In “Existence” the band gives the standard “why am I here?” soliloquy, concluding that “There’s got to be more to life than this.” Such a question begs for a more profound response. The last two tracks (“Compassion” and “Listen”) pick up where the band started with a greater sense of originality and actual relevance, as well as feeling.
The entire album only lasts nine songs-six if you skip through “Believe,” “Radio,” and “Existence”-and leaves the listener with a sense of incompletion. The band seems to lack refinement in their presence and their sound. Understandably, they sound like a young band. Broken Day may actually be hamstrung by their desire to appeal to such a wide audience. Future outputs should prove more telling of their true mettle and capabilities.
