Review from Hybrid Magazine: It's 5:59 AM and I am not a morning person (*understatement*). Nay, diehard scenester that I am, I keep the rock-star hours. "Gee…what better time to review this 'Lay Awake', while I am doing just that", I think crabbily to myself … But that was before I had a listen. With today's horde of factory-issued posable Bratz dolls (male and female) and pseudo-thugs with purposely misspelled monikers roaming the musical landscape…and Shania Twain seen blasphemously sporting her new Ramones t-shirt-'Now that's the last straw!!'-it is very easy to feel cynical about the current state of musical affairs. Even Hail to the Thief, the latest release from my beloved Radiohead (as IF ya didn't know) felt disappointingly recycled and hum-drum… If it was a let-down for you too, give Roomtone's Lay Awake a try. Really. (I'm not being sacrilegious, I promise.) Compelling and entrancing, this album immediately hooks you into a listen-I was pleasantly surprised and amazed! It would be considered "experimental" and "emo" and yet is refreshingly lacking in those genres' typical traits of pretentiousness and self-indulgence. Not background music, this will have you keyed in and truly listening, instead of just hearing… Like the layers in a good Merlot-and with a similar effect on the brain-Lay Awake is full of lush textural and tonal depth, with nice subtle harmonies and segues. It feels familiar and new all at once, with definite flavors of Radiohead, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon (especially in the guitars), and the vocals in Jane's Addiction(particularly on Track 2, "Radio" and Track 3, "Fool's Gold"), but without Perry Farrell's sometimes gratingly straining vocal qualities… In other words, like Mr. Farrell if he wore looser pants while singing instead of those "narble-huggers", to quote my younger sister. The lyrics are as cryptic and ethereal as anything by the Stone Roses orDeVotchKa; yet like the aforementioned bands, still manage to feel intensely earnest and desperately romantic. It's blissfully melancholic without being overly morose; pop-y morphine for a worried mind... If Roomtone were a tangible color, I'd paint these four walls with it and surely sleep better! As smoky and multilayered as a Rembrandt or a Godard, their music has a nearly *visual* quality about it-the band's backgrounds in painting and film are evident. The songs often follow a bell curve of slowly peaking and then winding down again, but are interspersed with jagged, intense blasts of guitar and primal drums to keep one's heart beating and one's mind fully present. The effect is exciting, even sexy-not jarring. The percussion is used to particularly interesting effect, ranging from jazz snare to East Indian hand drums and all tones in between... even the sound of a record rotating on a turntable, hitting a snag with every turn, is effectively used as a beat in Track 10, "Why Should I Stay". The album is consistently good (a rarity, no?), but standout tracks are: "Laugh in the Dark"; "Radio"; "Captain" (imagine a watery sea chanty done Emo-style - really), and "Let Time Stand Still", with its charming little Japonesque exit. Unselfconsciously touching and chillingly lovely, you may get goose bumps while listening...this album is mesmerizing! I haven't been this enthusiastic about a debut CD in quite a while. When the album ends, there's that sense of sitting in a darkened theatre as the end credits roll, thinking, "Aww…it's over already?? WOW-that was fabulous-let's hide in here and watch it again…" And so I did. To Lay Awake is an experience that should not be missed. (Who knew?) -- Dee Vinyl