Morin’s also good evidence of why we need some kind of nurturing incubator for developing musicians. To look at his current career path, from the hardcore Barium to a Cambiata that are getting less heavy and more thoughtful every day to the alt-country/alt-pop of Daro, is to watch what happens when musicians keep at it, picking up influences like chronic conditions and sloughing off old skins that were just holding them back. How many musicians lack Morin’s drive, and give up and get day jobs before reaching maturity? Too many.

We’re lucky here that Morin found a partner in Noah Cole, who plays drums throughout the album, to co-write songs and help with the recording process, and a willing bassist in Tyler Quist. In a band like Cambiata, with five songwriters (each penning a tune on the new EP), it’s not surprising there wasn’t room for this output of songs Morin has created, most of them fairly acoustic and many of them slower than your average rock-radio hit. If Cambiata are ’CYY, Daro are ’CLZ, which shows some nice versatility and in the long run may open more opportunity for Morin.

On February 7, Daro will do their best to recreate the sounds you hear on the debut album with a band that does not include Cole (he’s moved along); does include Quist (playing keyboard); and also features Stu Mahan, local bass player for hire (seriously, he’s played with everyone from the Awesome to jazzman Tim O’Dell to the I-Rates); DJ Moore on drums; and, since Morin can only play one guitar at a time, Joel Amsden on electric guitar. The challenge will be to capture the warm guitar pop, the breezy, pillow-soft organs, and the breathy urgency featured on the album.

It’s possible the first song is the best, the Wilco-like “QC,” which features the questioning and introspective Morin we’re intimately acquainted with by the album’s end. Here, he twists and turns a central chorus line. “An existence that is slowly developing” becomes “An existence that selfishly enveloped me” and, finally, “an existence that is poorly developing” over staccato guitar chords. The guitar lick and organ pairing that runs into track two is delicious.

In "Lexus," featuring Devo-esque repeating runs on the electric guitar and bass, we hear that “it’s all my fault/Consistently committing myself to another one.” In “Soon It Will Pass,” which features a John Cougar-catchy chorus and a wily Wurlitzer, we’re told there’s “so many things in life that I don’t know/And that kind of scares me.”

But there’s nothing to be afraid of here, nothing too self-indulgent or whiney. What should be celebrated is that, in this day and age of relatively cheap recording and duplication, experimentation and half-formed questions find their way into our CD players instead of echoing for no one through a practice space (bedroom). There might be some raw vocals here and some songwriting forms that have been proven successful by other bands, but there’s a lot of pure talent that just seems to poke around the corners of the Americana canon.

The frequent contributions from a string quartet, arranged by Morin and Cole, call to mind the product of Ethan Johns. “Entitled” shows off some of that Jeff Tweedy swagger that led him to declare, “I assassin down the avenue.” “Ordinary Day” is a cowboy ballad that might make Jimmy Rodgers proud.

Morin says Cambiata come first (and they probably should), but Daro will be playing your local clubs about once a month. Pick up the record when it hits Bull Moose February 13, check out the show Thursday, and if you see Morin, tell him he’s earned a day off here and there.

On the Web
Daro: www.myspace.com/daromusic

Sam Pfeifle can be reached at sam_pfeifle@yahoo.com .