Three-quarters of Toronto death metal band Tomb Mold trade blast beats for sun-drenched math rock and jazz on a disciplined, joyous debut full-length

Words by Felix Bartlett  | July 08, 2026

---

Seeing footage of Tomb Mold tearing through the Roundhouse at this year’s Incineration Festival, all cavernous riffs and technical brutality, you’d be forgiven for assuming melody was the last thing on their minds. So it’s a genuine surprise to find guitarist Payson Power, drummer Max Klebanoff and bassist Kevin Sia behind Daydream Plus, a project that swaps death metal’s crushing weight for something closer to a warm afternoon at the end of the summer holidays.

Formed in 2020 as a deliberate step away from their day job, the trio spent two EPs sketching out the overlap between math rock and city pop before committing to their debut album proper. Second Last Day of Summer, released via Run For Cover, is entirely instrumental, a choice Power has been explicit about wanting from the outset, preferring the openness of pure melody to what he’s called the instruction manual of lyrics. The concept traces back to a very specific feeling: not the last day of summer itself, but the day before it, the final stretch where the good times still feel consequence-free.

That idea shapes every corner of the record. Power storyboarded the tracklist down to individual song titles before writing a note, and reportedly obsessed over trimming the whole thing to a precise 30 minutes and 53 seconds. Three short instrumental interludes, ‘Lockpick’, ‘Undertow’ and ‘Constellation’, function less like filler and more like cutscenes, stitching the album’s twelve tracks into one continuous world rather than a loose collection of songs.

Opener ‘Tutorial’ sets the tone immediately, pairing the pace of an early-00s emo banger with the melodic sensibility of a video game soundtrack and just enough jazz unpredictability to keep you guessing. The clean guitar tone is a bold choice given the trio’s background, nowhere to hide behind distortion, yet Power’s technical command holds up under the scrutiny, while Klebanoff and Sia lock into grooves that never once let the record drift into aimlessness.

The guest spots are where Second Last Day of Summer really opens up. Ryo Kishimoto’s electric piano gives ‘Metropolitan Mirage’ a smooth, city pop sheen, while ‘More Time Alone’ saves its best trick for last: a Joseph Shabason saxophone solo that arrives from nowhere and briefly turns the whole record cinematic. ‘Nautical Twilight’ closes things out just as warmly, with American Football’s Steve Lamos on trumpet lending the track a gentle, golden-hour glow.

Elsewhere, the band’s heavier instincts sneak back in. ‘Emergency Exit’ swings between blast beats and groove with real whiplash, a reminder of exactly who’s playing these parts, while ‘Stiletto Flourish’ hands Sia a rare moment in the spotlight for a bass solo that’s as tasteful as it is technical. ‘Hard To Destroy’ had to be reined in during writing, Power has admitted, after early versions leaned on harmonised tapping he later decided was overkill, stripping it back until the melody could breathe.

If there’s a knock against the record, it’s that such tight discipline occasionally works against it. With everything so meticulously trimmed, a handful of the album’s shorter, guitar-led passages can start to blur into one another on a single sitting. It’s a minor complaint on a record this carefully assembled, and one the interludes and guest features go a long way towards resolving.

Daydream Plus have even built out the record’s world beyond the twelve tracks, teaming up with Batlab Electronics on Extended Forecast, a full chiptune reimagining of the album pressed onto a working NES cartridge. It’s a daft, lovable flourish that sums up the whole project: a band capable of genuine extremity choosing, for 31 minutes at least, to just let the light in.

Verdict: 💀💀💀💀

For fans of: Don Caballero, American Football, Tera Melos

Second Last Day of Summer is released on July 10 via Run For Cover Records