by Stewart Mason

The debut album by Dutch alt-rockers Racoon sounds oddly out of time: the mixture of earnest lyrics, acoustic guitars, and quiet-quiet-loud dynamics has more in common with the sound of alternative radio in the period between Nirvana and the rise of mookish rap-rock, when now-forgotten bands like Deep Blue Something and Fastball were in their brief ascendancy. The mawkish ballad "Love You More" sounds so familiar that it's a shock to discover that it's a band original and not a cover. As with the original bands in this genre, the main problem Racoon has is a regrettable lack of personality; Another Day is pleasant enough, but there's not a single song on here that the listener can't imagine being performed by Hootie & the Blowfish.