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Daybreaker bears all the strengths and beauty of the earlier Orton CDs, but it also shows some growth.
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It's a downer, sure, but if you've got the patience, this disc's subtle meditations have a way of working themselves into your heart.
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Orton has a flair for penning languid, spacious songs whose forlorn characters seem as adrift as the music's fleeting acoustic guitar chords and absentminded piano tinkles.
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Yeah, she’s sticking with the formula that got her going six years ago, but when it actually works, why bother messing with it?
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MixerDaybreaker is Orton's ultimate heartstring-pulling concoction. [Jul 2002, p.80]
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MojoThis is her best to date, but she'll be better yet. [Sep 2002, p.102]
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MagnetDaybreaker, though neither as arresting as her debut nor as cohesive as its follow-up, almost corrects the inconsistency issue. [#55, p.86]
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The immaculately chiselled 'Daybreaker' is so beautiful and distant that it almost isn't there at all.
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Daybreaker's more conventional nature puts a greater and more intriguing challenge on Orton's vocal cords to be the album's main instrument; that voice, a breathless cry that falls somewhere between Natalie Merchant and Bjork, is more than equal to the task.
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Orton delivers some gooey pop complete with sticky tunes and honey-dipped ear candy - yet it's heavy, disturbing, recondite.
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Listen beyond the surface and you'll hear an old school folkie who could just as easily curl up with her acoustic guitar and sing you to heavenly sleep.
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VibeDaybreaker is no less gripping for its optimism. [Sep 2002, p.250]
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Like Trailer Park, her first full-length, the new Daybreaker is less about melody and being lovely than about instrumentation and experimentation with the elements--electronic, acoustic, and lyrical.
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This time, the arrangements that envelop Orton's ruminations on various ill-suited partners are too hazy and languid.
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SpinThe production smudges the songs into fuzzy watercolors, and Orton's twangy burr can't always cut through. [Sep 2002, p.128]
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UncutAt their best, Orton's songs do achieve what Daybreaker sets out to achieve--a sense of watching the dawn rise, all hyper and half awake from having been up all night arguing, making love or simply conversing intensely. [Sep 2002, p.108]
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Although it's perhaps her most consistent and mature work to date, it's also her least engaging, never matching the dizzying heights of her previous efforts even as it consciously avoids past pitfalls.
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About half of the album plods through bland, wispy material that gasps for hooks to latch onto and gives Orton too much room to show off her limited vocal range.
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Some of the songs here are forgettable in the extreme.
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What truly separates Daybreaker from other Orton efforts is its lack of emotional resonance-- moments where Beth just belts it out or where she actually seems engaged with the songs she's singing.
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Q MagazineTortoise-pace strumming and a crippling shortage of choruses produce only torpor. [Aug 2002, p.131]
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Orton seems to be embracing the humdrum, schlocky sound of New Age crooners and adult contemporary mush like Dido.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 7 out of 8
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Mixed: 1 out of 8
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Negative: 0 out of 8
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Jul 21, 2013
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JonBSep 12, 2007
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KeithY.Aug 11, 2002Fantastic! Must buy!