Endgames, Daybreak To Sunset

It sounds like the members of Endgames have reasonably cool taste in music, but all that means for Daybreak To Sunset is that the songs are interesting, when they manage to be interesting at all, only to the extent that they remind you of songs you like better. “Don’t Let Your Love Change You” is a second-rate “Pumping On Your Stereo” if you want it to be and more or less a total ripoff of Matthew Sweet’s “I Wanted To Tell You” even if you don’t, and the “Like A Hurricane” intro of “Til We’re Together” is just a stall before the song turns into wan power pop. “If You’re A Believer” makes like Radio City-era Big Star but leaves out the electric production, while there’s not one second of the Young Rascals-style opener “Daybreak” that doesn’t sound like every other second. Elsewhere, “Who Is Doris Day?” makes like chipper and silly mid-’80s pop and “Somebody Knows” is a samba undergirded by an unhelpful wocka-wocka, as though somebody was playing ping-pong through a Leslie speaker in the background. If Endgames were throwing a party, I’d probably be psyched to hear whatever mix they came up with. But as soon as they put on their own CD, I’m out of there.