A Guide for the Daylight Hours

Sometimes it’s fun to hear pop rock with a thick Scottish accent. U2 and New Order seem to have been formative for Ballboy. The synthesizer has a special place in these tunes, which gives it a distinctly non-American pop sound – it has that glam rock/”our rock sound is big enough to fill an amphitheater” edge to it sometimes. The acoustic numbers gives the album a nice balance, like track 10. They infuse quirky and geeky lyrics about lonely guys, like the kind with infatuations with girls at record stores and the ones who take solace in country music after a breakup. There are a lot songs pertaining to sex, particularly track nine, called “Sex is boring (with me).”
-Matt M.


1. Fast – Funny and sad song about a guy humiliated by girl in a record shop – with a “fuck” FCC.
2. Up-tempo – Has sort of a glam rock/New Order synthesizer grandeur.
3. Fast – very cool bridge, but it has “asshole” – or “arsehole” FCC
4. Up-tempo – Odd song about a frayed relationship.
5. * Down-tempo – solo acoustic guitar – good song, but only 1:36
6. Mid-tempo – Lot’s of strings, mostly an instrumental, but he speaks a bit in the middle
7. Up-tempo – Very much U2ish with the guitars.
8. Up-tempo – Intense – feels like this song operates on a full canvas – the synthesizer riff is cool on this one.
9. * Up-tempo – Very cool bridge that moves into big sound with strings.. I like how this song deals with male fears of inadequacy.
10. * Down-tempo – just an acoustic guitar and a lovely cello – very good song with poignant theme about the line between love and destroying the thing we love. For example: “if I was going to kill you/I wouldn’t tell you/ (I’d do it with style)”
11. Up-tempo – it has “shite” – or “shit” in Scottish, so I think maybe FCC. The trombone is pretty cool.
12. Down-tempo – solo acoustic guitar – nice.