Brace Yourself

If Ben Folds Five were reincarnated in the emo era as a quartet (adding a guitarist to their piano trio sound), they would sound remarkably like the young Minneapolis band Dropping Daylight. In his normal register, singer and pianist Sebastian Davin has an uncanny vocal similarity to Folds, a sweet '70s AM pop-style voice with an effective falsetto, but he has an annoying tendency to go all Scott Stapp on the choruses, that bombastic bellow (always accompanied by big distorted guitar lines) that says that this band really Means It, Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaan. In fact, Seth Davin's effects-heavy guitar lines often sound bizarrely out of place in his brother's songs, as if they were dropped into already complete arrangements to appeal to current popular music trends. The best songs on Brace Yourself, like "Apologies" and "Lucy," are smart and smart-alecky pop/rock tunes that would be better suited by a more subdued production style that wasn't paying so much attention to the current state of modern rock radio. There's much to be said for non-conformity, but Dropping Daylight don't quite have the nerve for that step yet.