Band Name: Daniel G. Harmann
Album Name: The Lake Effect
Best Element: Ethereal, mesmerizing mood.
Genre: Mellow Indie-rock
Website: www.hellotower.com
Label Name: Post436 Records (www.post436records.com)
Band E-mail: allrockalert@yahoo.com
The album starts off earnestly enough. There are light, ethereal keyboards that lift the song off the ground and let it float in mid air for the listener to breathe in. Then you listen some more and its no use, you’re sucked in. It’s slow, mesmerizing, thoughtful, sad, and hopeful. It’s the voice of one man who is pained but in the midst of his anguish can feel brave enough to stand up against it. It’s a beautiful thing, really. In the cracks of the songs, Daniel’s fragile voice yelps and yearns for hope, love, and acceptance. At first, one might be reminded of Owen, but there is more rock and less folk in this offering. At some points, I even hear a little Third Eye Blind or anything that was being played on the radio in the mid 90’s. Again, it’s a beautiful thing.
Somewhere in the rainy streets of Seattle, Daniel wrote this album and would probably watch the weather go from rainy to sunny and back again. In the time of rain there was almost a hope that the sun would come out. When the sun was shining, there was always a threat of the sky to break open drench the city. This theme is highly apparent in The Lake Effect. Daniel knows that life can be hard and full of rainy days but he still believes in the sunshine. This theme is perhaps the underlying nature of our human existence. We are all doomed to suffer in one way another, but we go on before we have hope. It’s brilliantly fundamental.
-VicA
jsonmusic@hotmail.com