This is a review of "Everything Grows Light" recorded by A Day Left. The review was written by Sam Saunders in 2004.

Oli Renton and Lee Malcolm were born to do the Leeds/Reading Festival. Not in the slightly geeky tents where I go, but out there on the main stage in the afternoon sun with guitar screaming and the kids crowd surfing like there was no concussion. This is three tracks of nupostmetalgrungeprogrock with unashamed glee and a lot of style.

The voice is good, there's a poppily infectious guitar lick on "Dead calm" and there's plenty of over the top and up the other side rockin' out nonsense. "Black Box" goes over eight minutes without a lot of justification, but it contains all the best fruit and nut from the last thirty years of rock guitar bands. With the right visual props and media support this could outdo the Darkness for excitement and panache. More importantly it could show them what a little intelligent invention can do as well.

The lead track is "Nocturne" (someone in the band used to have piano lessons, then). It’s a darker metal than the other two, and a very energetic field filling stomp sets it going. Sadly (for me) it drops the flailing madness after the first twenty five seconds and goes a bit indie arty (where there isn’t such a confident touch) and when the rock gets back in, it’s a bit slower and more grandiose. I thought there was going to be a great radio play track here, but it got a bit lost. A clever move would have taken the three or four sections of the one song and make them into three or four separate sharper songs. The bits don’t really develop from one to the other, they just stop and start as and when. That said, we're a long way on from A Day Left's last pugnacious offering "the pseudo post neo modern avante bassment garden rock ep".

But hell, yes. It’s good stuff. Can I keep the first 25 seconds of "Nocturne" and the first 32 seconds of "Dead Calm"? I never did do crowd surfing. Get out and buy this ya buggers. You'll love it.