By Johnny Donaldson

Collegian Staff

Howie Day

Stop All The World Now

Epic

Howie Day is the rain cloud to John Mayer’s clear blue skies. Even when he’s singing about being troubled, Mayer sounds just a shade too smooth and upbeat – it’s as if he doesn’t want himself to become too ruffled by his music.

Mayer’s songs tend to drift toward the sunnier side of things, all bubbly pop and little real angst. Day, on the other hand, sounds as if he’s perpetually ruing over something in his mind. Mayer’s the guy at the bar strumming a guitar and poaching the whole sensitive act to pick up girls. Day is the wounded soul in the corner, scribbling down lyrics in a beat up notebook while the girls swoon over the cocky guy singing at the bar.

Day’s debut, “Australia” never met with much commercial success, but it did garner much popularity among the college crowd, with audiences lined up at performance to watch Day play live, often backed only with a looping system he devised for himself.

“Stop All the World Now” is Day’s second bid to one-up the John Mayers of the world, replacing the happy-go-lucky singer/songwriter-isms with slightly more earnest and austere material. At times the material is very good, far more promising and forceful than the relatively weak pabulum that makes up Mayer’s “Heavier Things.” At other times, the songs sound generic and indistinct – rote, by-the-numbers demonstrations of guy-with-a-guitar sensitivity.

Like on “Australia,” the songs up front are stronger than the ones at the end of an album. Day can create decent songs, but he can’t sustain the energy for an entire album. The albums end up sputtering and flaming out the closer to the end they get. “Stop” begins to drift at about the halfway point and only spike during “She Says” a revamped version of a song off “Australia.”

“She Says” is a tender acoustic number on “Australia,” but placed here – just before the album grows soupier and more forgettable – the song becomes punchier, buoyed by electronic effects and drum beats. In fact, much of the album is advanced by the addition of organs, Wurlitzers, Mellotron and the like.

The best songs kick off the album – songs like the chugging “Perfect Time of Day” and the tender, gorgeous ballad “Collide.” The aptly titled “Sunday Morning Song” has a jaunty weekend bounce – it’s the kind of mellow, even-tempoed song that would suit a lazy Sunday morning lolling about doing nothing. It blithely, breezily lopes along on a light-footed beat.

It’s when the daytime-soap jingle opens “I’ll Take You On” that “Stop” stumbles. Except for the gently muscular jangle of “She Says,” the songs aren’t as memorable as the opening numbers. They’re filler, placed one in a row and kill the momentum of “Stop.” They come off as templates for the folky singer genre. Still what’s good is so good that the flaws can be forgiven. Now, if only Day can make an album that can steer the entire course rather than drift into the ether halfway through.