Grandaddy

Grandaddy’s 2000 album, The Sophtware Slump, dripped with millennial dread: Pictures of broken keyboards on post-apocalyptic dirt floors were strewn throughout the CD booklet. Tracks such as “He’s Simple, He’s Dumb, He’s the Pilot” spoke directly to the times: “Adrift again 2000 man/You lost your maps/You lost your plans.” Grandaddy maintains its unique view on the man vs. machine disconnect on Sumday, continuing to portray it more as quirky coexistence than sinister conflict. “The Group Who Couldn’t Say” tells the story of a group of hyper-modern office workers rewarded by their boss with a tour of the countryside. One worker “wondered why she’d never noticed dragonflies/Her drag and click had never yielded anything as perfect as a dragonfly.” Lead singer Jason Lytle might have to arm-wrestle Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard for the Most Agreeable Voice in Indie Rock title. Even when he tries to sing it funny like Beck (kinda) on “Stray Dog and the Chocolate Shake,” it doesn’t bring him down. Sumday is no Sophtware sequel, but it reinforces what we already know about Grandaddy. When it all goes to shit and the computers actually do crash, these five trucker’s-hat-clad guys will probably be sitting on lawn chairs somewhere in Modesto, California, growing more beard and reaffirming to each other, “I’m OK with my decay. ”