Spencer Day is one of the few crooners that a) does his own material and b) doesn’t try to sound like Michael Bubbles, two major plusses. Here, he teams with the Budman/Levy orchestra that boasts Jeff Driskill/sax, Josh Nelson/p and Andrew Synowiec/g as some of the stars, with arrangements by the leaders and Day himself.
Day is adept at creating a mood as he uses his voice to add to the atmosphere. Long shadows of a film noir movie are evoked during “Angel City” and “Ghost of the Chateau Marmont” while he can growl like he’s strolling down the Street of Dreams on the R&B ish “Come and Save Me.” Some two stepping upbeat moods almost go C&W during “Lost In LA” and the 50s’d “Riding on a Broken Dream” whereas he taps into his inner Billy Joel during a piano mannish “Training Wheel.” Best of all is when he gets personal, as on the tender “Somewhere There’s A City,” the heartfelt “I Wish I Didn’t Care” or “72 and Sunny.” One of the few guys out there who still believes in substance over style.