A soft, gray afternoon presently drifts outside my window. The clouds hang low enough to touch, rain patters against the roofs of the cars, and I can’t help but feel that the new Park Days single Too Much Rain has summoned this day to my door just to provide the proper vantage from which to fully appreciate it.
Pretty guitar work and an unfussy chord progression float atop a gentle stream of cassette tape hiss. Equal parts the antique aesthetic of Julian Koster’s Orbiting Human Circus and the detached yearning of an angst-free Duster, this bedroom-pop vignette will sink into your chest and linger long beyond its brief runtime.
Park Days is the side project of Dutch Criminal Record guitarist and vocalist Sam Thrussell, who recorded all the vocals and instrumentation for Too Much Rain on a TASCAM four-track tape machine. Following the success of Dutch Criminal Records’ 2024 full-length Novium and subsequent touring engagements, Thrussell’s return to the Park Days project feels less like a detour and more like a coming home.
Too Much Rain is at once meditative and compelling—a breezy lo-fi hymn. The track eases you along with a sweet and airy melody, carried alternately by the guitar and the vocals. A mellow rhythm section anchors the arrangement, keeping it from dissipating into its own stoned fragility. But for all its easygoing restraint, the song still manages to convey quite a bit of emotion. The verse expresses a longing that the refrain can’t muster the energy to pursue—the sound of stasis rooted in exhaustion, rather than content.
From the upbeat jangle of his 2023 debut single Down and Out to the sonata-like instrumental Homeward Bound EP, Park Days has long provided Thrussell a laboratory for sonic experimentation and discovery, and Too Much Rain marks a new high point in this modest but continual evolution in style.
Follow Park Days on Instagram, and listen to Too Much Rain below:
Written by John Bagatta
