Gossamer Days is
Crushed Stars -- aka Todd Gautreau's -- third album of glossy pop music. Deliberately paced tempos are set by finger-picked guitar patterns augmented by sustained keyboard chords, and Gautreau calmly and indistinctly intones his lyrics within the mix. It's all dreamy and gauzy and vague, music meant to create (or accompany) a sleepy mood rather than to listen to carefully, like the earnest mumbling of Michael Stipe in early
R.E.M. if the band were being produced by an ambient-minded
Brian Eno. It is likely to soothe, though, if not work as an outright musical sedative. ~ William Ruhlmann