EatThatPhonebook 5/10

"Day Trip" is just another album among Pat Metheny's immense discography.

“Day Trip” is one of the more than few trio collaborations Pat Metheny’s had: this time, with Christian McBride on bass and Antonio Sanchez on drums. The experience of the last two musicians pales in comparison to the one of the guitarist, so I tend to forget about them, even though overall they did a pretty good job in accompanying Metheny. But the result I have here is disappointing, as it was inevitable for a musician like Pat to disappoint more than a few times: just look at his immense discography.

Stylistically on this one Metheny abandons the ambitious Fusion style full of different sounds and instruments and aims to a more intimate atmosphere, and prefers to use only three instruments. Due to the massive presence of guitar, this still is a Fusion album, but it is much more played like it was lounge music. In a word, boring. This album was boring me in quite a few moments, the music was dull, not that inspired (with a few exceptions), and easily forgettable. There were, like I said, a few exceptions that grabbed my attention, but otherwise I found myself wandering in my thoughts listening to this, not being minimally provoked.

But I must say, that even though it is over an hour long and it is all that I said previously, this album has quite a bit of variety that a Metheny fan would surely be able to appreciate: there are acoustic moments, electric ones, maybe even some electronics in the background. The bass gives an actually great addiction to the overall sound, and the drums are honestly one of the best I’ve heard in recent Pat Metheny albums. We also got those few melodic songs that the musicians has always included in his works, usually being the title track ( most obvious examples are “New Chautauqua” and “Bright Size Life”), even though on this one it is an exception But “Son Of Thirteen” is a great example of these kind of songs. “Dreaming Trees” has some precious acoustic moments that immediately grabbed my attention, and “Is This America?” was another highlight for me, beautifully intimate and executed.

However, I feel a little underwhelmed by the music here, It just seems a little too mellow and low tuned, even though it has some variety, like I said. If you’re not familiar with this musician and you are interested in giving him a try, I wouldn’t recommend starting on this one: Personally, it seems like another album among Metheny’s immense discography, that can easily be ignored or forgotten.