What a day for a Daysdream

By Henry Lipput

The Shop Window’s great new album Daysdream (Jangleshop Records) is the band’s first new album in two years following A 4 Letter Word in 2022. After a clutch of singles promoting Daysdream the expectations were high for the new release.

The new album more than meets the challenge. The Shop Window has, starting with their 2019 single “Signpost,” always been a really tight band but with Daysdream they’ve hit a new high. The band sees this double LP as being two mini albums with one being Days and the other Dream. The Days disc is filled with upbeat jangle and indie pop sounds while the Dream disc is more melancholy with its dreampop/shoegaze elements.

Disc One of Daysdream kicks off with “I Run” and we’re introduced to this disc’s emphasis on the sound of Carl Mann and Syd Oxlee’s two-voices-singing-in-one-mic vocals as well as Mann’s patented 12-string jangle (it appears that Mann has never met a jangle he didn’t like and he comes up with his own on Daysdream). Second guitarist, programmer, and sax player Paul Reeves, bassist and synth player Martin Corder, and drummer Phil Elphee join Mann and Oxlee to create a rewarding listening experience (one that is made even more special when you get to hear it the album on vinyl).

Disc Two, Dream, starts with “Miracles” and the songs on these two sides are a showcase for all the band’s talents. These songs make more use of Reeves’s programming and Corder’s synths, Elphee’s drums are more prominent, and the guitars of Reeves and Mann work side by side. Daysdream closes with the sweeping “Made In Heaven,” a seven-minute glorious beauty.