I got off on the wrong foot with Howie for reasons that are entirely his fault.
He chose "Perfect Time of Day" as his first single and also the song he played on everyone from Leno to Kilbourne. Thus when I started hearing positive things about the brand new Day from some of my colleagues here at zbone, I scoffed and wrote them off as further examples of their occasional lapses in judgement.

As it turns out Howie's new release once again proves the old adage "you can't judge an album by it's single." The vast majority of this fine effort that represents a significant improvement over his last release Australia. Derivative to be sure, with nods to everyone from Radiohead, U2, Travis and Verve, Stop the World is richly arranged and full of worthwhile stuff that reminds of another band who made all of the above influences work in a way that made it sound original enough, Remy Zero. Though much of the lyrical content still revolves around the vicissitudes of love and relationships, the swirling strings and lush orchestrations lift the material above his former acoustic troubadour with a chip on his shoulder approach.

Though the production of the record is big and echoing and grand, the centerpiece of the sound is Day's powerful vocal ability. His stage presence and strong voice reminds of Ian McCulloch, yet he is able to sell this his emotion as his own and it's this that makes you buy into this new record, and ignore it's obvious familiarity.