If you're into album sleeve art, this one is absolutely sumptuous. However, one would be mistaken in thinking this is where the main interest of One Day lies. Not that the project would necessarily appear engaging on paper. The result of a songwriting competition for Church youth could easily be associated with the kind of stuff only the hardcore fans of the genre really listen to. In that regard, One Day, masterminded by Giovanni Carrea and recorded at Beck studio in Wellingborough, the adopted city of this expatriate American, turns out to be a fine collection of songs that will catch the ear of pop-music enthusiasts. A very unlikely one, to say the least. This record hearkens back to a time - 1977 - where the zeitgeist was to be loud and angry, with punks going full-steam in UK. Obviously some youth in the late 70's worked their way past them and on to a blissful earlier era and pick up where the late Beatles and their successors left off. Dear Auntie Bett, a wistful, charming piece of sparsely-produced yet so mannered progressive-pop, sets the tone for the whole album. What is predominant and what succeeds consistently is the freshness of the delivery, easygoing, and straightforward simple, with a lightness of touch that oddly gives a smiling-through-the-tears quality to a generally upbeat album, nearly counterbalanced by the Sonia King's Blue Skies number.

One Day might seem to be an exercise in nostalgia, but this blissful era never existed as neatly in reality. The landscape was no longer virginal. We can only try to look back to simpler years.

Blue Skies

Heard You Say

One Day