Damn that Pete Yorn. He’s a budding rock star whose female fans want him and whose male fans want to be him. He’s nearly a pinup, ripe for videos, the glossy magazines and cameos on WB television shows. It’s enough to hate the dude.
Yorn’s nearly got it all. That which made his 2001 Columbia Records debut album, Musicforthemorningafter, great is again offered on Day I Forgot. It’s sonically delicious, sometimes dense, sometimes breathy, teetering between scrappy spontaneity and ProTools precision. It’s smart, rocking, inventive, emotional, and unpredictable. And Yorn comes at you, romantically, forlorn, with a Springsteenesque scruff, a Westerbergian ability to convey restlessness and uncertainty, and a dose of gloom like a cloudy day in Glasgow. It all makes for a vibe all his own — although, unlike Springsteen and Westerberg, Yorn has yet to hit on a lyric that truly gets under the skin. But there’s feeling aplenty, which is still a battle won.
Day I Forgot sounds even more assured and unified than its predecessor. The album’s first single, “Come Back Home”, is a scintillating, swooning slab of guitar pop that deserves to follow his last album’s “Life On A Chain” onto radio play lists everywhere. Such exposure would be a victory of sorts for good music — even if it means more women falling down at his feet.