Insufficient Funds: Clear Days Always' Savages

Insufficient Funds is a weekly post in which we feature a free, or very close to it, piece of media that you can enjoy without overdrafting your bank account. So if you're low on funds, stay tuned to Cerebral Pop every Friday morning.

While Michigan might not have a thriving music scene along the lines of Seattle, or Athens, Georgia, there are still a fair amount of great bands around here. Tiny but creative music scenes in Lansing, Grand Rapids, Detroit, Kalamazoo and all of the smaller cities in between come together to make a slew of great bands that might never get the national attention they deserve.

One of the most creative and interesting of the Michigan musicians I've come across is Levi Jacob Bailey. Prolific is certainly one word to describe Levi. His "normal" band is Spit for Athena, one of my favorites local bands, or really, bands in general. I even got them to play at my bachelor party at the local bowling alley, because while most people go to strip clubs and get drunk for their bachelor party, I just want to see live music.

But when Levi isn't writing for Spit for Athena, he is throwing anything and everything at the wall under the Clear Days Always name. From noise, to folk, to electronica, any musical whim he has can end up under the moniker, so you have to go into each of his releases with an extremely open mind.

Savages explores his metal side, with heavily distorted guitar and lots of yelling/screaming. Some of it is along the lines of something Spit for Athena might do, only slower and heavier. The first song, Linoleum, throws you straight into it and acclimates you to the record, before Chalk steps it back a little bit. Still, these two songs are the longest on the record, with the rest of the seven tracks clocking in under two minutes in length. The brevity of the entire thing makes the beating-you-over-the-head-metal sound more acceptable, as the sheer wall of rock you're hit with doesn't over-stay it's welcome, only leaves you wanting more.

While I'm not much of a metal-head and mostly prefer Bailey's Pop/Acoustic/Experimental/Whatever releases, I've been known to appreciate a sound thrashing in musical form, and this CD is certainly one of those cases. If you've had a bad day, put it on, turn it all the way up, and act like a mad-man. Best part of all? It's completely free. Download it in a variety of styles right here, or give the entire thing a listen below. And if metal isn't your thing, check out some of his pop/acoustic songs here.