Dayglow: “Moving Out” Into The Unknown

Towards the beginning of the first song on the album Harmony House, by Sloan Struble, aka Dayglow, he poses a question to listeners: “who will you be?” He’s already answered that question for himself. He’s going to be a star. Struble knew that he wanted to release an album before his freshman year of college, and he did just that. Dayglow’s first album, Fuzzybrain, was released in 2018- Struble finished the album the day before he left for college. His much anticipated sophomore album, Harmony House, was released May of 2021. 

Struble’s focus on growth and learning adds a depth to Harmony House that wasn’t necessarily there in Fuzzybrain. “Run The World!!!” on Fuzzybrain’s lyric “And why is it that I believe/Everything they speak of me?/It’s hard for me sometimes to see/Beyond all that they want,” compared to “Medicine,” on Harmony House’s “You won’t know if you never try” just goes to show how much growth Struble has made in his two and a half years between albums. 

“Hot Rod,” one of my personal favorite songs of Struble’s, begins with a sound clip that he says he’s “always wanted to use.” It’s his mom from a camping trip when he was three. That seems to sum up Fuzzybrain: “let’s sing a song.” Struble classifies his first album as ‘bedroom pop’ (especially since it was recorded in his bedroom). He says he “doesn’t necessarily see [his] future music… [as] bedroom pop.” 

While making Harmony House, Struble focused his listening habits more on the 70s, disco and pop being some of his main genres. That very clearly comes through in the album, where many songs have a much more disco-y sound. Harmony House is really what answers his question of who he is. He declares throughout the album that he is who he says he is, he “wasn’t made to be medicine.” Struble’s declaration of being his own person and not being made to be only someone else’s shows some of the growth from Fuzzybrain, as a few songs on that album talk about a past relationship that he used to think was the ideal. 

Harmony House’s sound makes me personally feel as though it’s very much a summer album. Even when you’re “Crying on the Dancefloor,” the summer vibes are very clearly there, at least to me. Struble stated about “Balcony,” also on Harmony House, that he “hope[s] you… play it at a house party… that’s what it’s for.” “Balcony” is another of my personal favorite Dayglow songs. 

Harmony House may be a very energetic album, but toward the end of it, “Strangers” brings it right back to Struble’s roots. In this song, he discusses the people he used to know, including him. “So where do I go/When I don’t even know where I am right now?/And what am I to believe/When things keep getting stranger?” Struble tends to pose questions to himself and his listeners in his music, bringing his listeners even closer, making them contemplate what they really believe. 

I’ll leave you with a few of my favorite questions:

“What am I to say/When you feel like a stranger?” – “Strangers,” Harmony House

“What good is love/Without any strings?” – “Close To You,” Harmony House

“And why is it that I believe everything they speak of me?” – “Run the World!!!,” Fuzzybrain

And of course, “who will you be?”