Send "Daniel Martin Moore " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 There's a great story and an even better idea behind In the Cool of the Day. Not too long ago, Kentucky-born singer-songwriter Daniel Martin Moore rolled through WXVU Radio in Cincinnati to play a studio session and give an interview. Totally routine. But when Moore sat down at the old Steinway piano they kept in-house, his head and heart went wild. Apparently Moore had been thinking of making a gospel record for sometime, an album comprised of new original material as well as standards he remembered hearing and singing while growing up in Cold Spring. That piano, for whatever reason, brought it all home.Moore did something smart here: Rather than record straight covers of these songs, he tried to arrange and play them impressionistically, as he remembered them and as shaped by his feelings on spirituality now. In addition, he contributed four similarly inspired gospels songs of his own. The result is a very warm, very welcoming entry point for anyone interested in the gospel tradition. Though this album doesn't remain entirely faithful to the original source material's every layer, it does stay true to the feeling behind that music. That's a very special thing. It also sounds fantastic. Moore enlisted the help of several of his friends to bring the project into being, two of which are My Morning Jacket's Jim James on banjo (credited here as Yim Yames) and drummer Daniel Joseph Dorff, who took over at the aforementioned, mystical, nine-foot Steinway that set the project in motion. Everything here sounds as though it was recorded live with minimal overdubs, and though the feel is loose, all these players also sound like they've been playing together for years. Moore has an impossibly soothing voice (former lablemate and tourmate Sam Beam is of a similar feather) and the lighter fare, most of which can be found on the record's first half, can take on a coffee shop/Jack Johnson in Appalachia feel at times. Shuffles like "In the Garden" or Moore's take on Jean Ritchie's "In the Cool of the Day" are fully reclined and although they've got a great energy, those songs with a bit more shadow stand out the most. And with the exception of the mandolin-and banjo-laced "Up Above My Head", the majority of those songs were authored by Moore. One minute opener "All Ye Tenderhearted" is a brief acoustic inhale whose beauty is matched again, but only by the piano and hush of Moore's "O My Soul". Lyrically he stitches everything up quietly by referencing the titles and themes of other songs found here, the latter's chorus a nod to the same Jean Ritchie track noted above....full text |
| Musicomh |
| A bit like a charter mark, the fact that an album is stamped with the Sub Pop logo is usually a sign that you're going to get a quality record. Chickens know eggs, bakers know bread and Sub Pop know people like The Vaselines and Dum Dum Girls. These dudes know what they're doing. The effect, therefore, of picking up such a distinctly un-Sub Pop record as In The Cool Of The Day is a bit of a sucker punch. Listening to Daniel Martin Moore's latest release is a little like being given an ill-fitting jumper by a relative who usually nails your gift. You're left confused, a little angry and wondering what has happened to their previously faultless judgement. It's not that In The Cool Of The Day is a bad album, just that it doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. Opener All Ye Tenderhearted, just Moore's breathy vocals and the gentle strums of a banjo, sets the tone for pretty boy folk a la Mumford And Sons, but this is followed by the cloying Dark Road, an anaemic country pastiche that feels like Ryan Adams is lurking. Later on in Up Above My Head, Moore becomes Michael Bublé with a fiddle, his vocals sounding punchably smug and so jazz lite that you can practically hear the after eights being handed round. Softly And Tenderly starts off with a gentle piano tickle that sounds like Billy Joel's Always A Woman, but then becomes a vanilla flavoured gospel sludge. The overall feel of the album is of an experiment too far, centred around someone who doesn't quite have the va-va voom to pull it off. he whole project is overproduced and overly slick, stripping the nuance out of the hymnal nature of the music, music that should be allowed to breathe so that it can shine. While the press release talks of the fact the songs are a personal journey for Moore, there is no sense of that here at all. The singer-songwriter seems distant from the material, as if he is singing from another room (and not in an ethereal way). While hymns and spirituals should be earthy and uplifting, making the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, here they are sentimental and cloying. The sense of the personal has removed any sense of the universal, which is exactly what these songs need in order to thrive. It feels like Moore doesn't believe, and therefore neither can we....full text |
| Pastemagazine |
| It’s been over two years since the Daniel Martin Moore’s debut album Stray Age and a year since his collaborative release Dear Companion with Ben Sollee. Judging by his newest solo effort, The Kentucky singer spent that time deep in prayer. A voice as pure and blessed as the words he sings, In the Cool of the Day makes a listener want to believe. Transforming hymns into plaintive ballads, the well-produced tracks are gracefully austere, but the serious, somber nature is contrasted nicely with a simple joy ever-present in Moore’s voice—grandeur in an uncomplicated package. Despite the album’s religious foundation, the message isn’t doctrinal. In the Cool of the Day takes the listener out of church and into a glorious world. The folk gospel tunes evoke images of revivals, campfire nights, harvest moons and long, lazy days. Relying mostly on banjos, organs, violins and pianos, the album is uplifting without proselytizing or feeling preachy. Most of the tracks have a folk feel, but the jazzy touches on “In The Garden” and “Up Above My Head” provide some upbeat relief for a rather sedate album—don’t listen while operating heavy machinery. With a truthful tone and a passionate telling, In the Cool of the Day is good salve for anyone, believer or skeptic....full text |
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