Waiting for the Sunrise

AMG Review of Waiting for the Sunrise

Tim Sendra
All Music Guide

David Vandervelde's second album, Waiting for the Sunrise, takes a drastic turn away from the lo-fidelity, high-energy romp of his debut and steers a course for the middle of the classic rock road. Vandervelde has gone from presenting himself as a T. Rexy troubadour to a beardy, laid-back rocker who happily channels Neil Young at every opportunity. True, there are still some sonic oddities and tricks sprinkled across the album, but for the most part any track from Waiting for the Sunrise could be played back to back with any track by the Wallflowers or Band of Horses and they would sound perfectly in tune. Instead of wired and energetic tunes and elfin vocals, the scene is laid-back and Stonesy, and rather than drenching the songs in a cavernous echo that would turn everything into a poor man's Spector Wall of Sound, there are smooth arrangements with Hammond organs and vocal harmonies that would make CS&N nod in agreement. There are plenty of pleasant tunes and you have to credit Vandervelde for borrowing Neil's guitar tone and style rather than his vocal tics, like most of Young's acolytes are prone to do. And on "Cryin' Like the Rain," the vocals are pleasurably high-pitched while the guitars have some buzz and solid-state bite as opposed to their usual state of woody richness. Listening back to The Moonstation House Band, you can hear the seeds of Vandervelde's transformation into a classic rocker. There were pianos, ballads, and strings, and a strong sense that he was a rock & roll traditionalist below the iffy fidelity.