Each day of December this year, I’m highlighting one of my favourite albums of 2024. Counting down the list, we start with #31 on December 1st and go all the way down until we’ve reached #1 on December 31st. Today, #25 on my Album of the Year list: Diamond Day – ‘Connect the Dots’.

Diamond Day holds a rare status on this blog. Up until the release of debut album ‘Connect the Dots’ (29th of February 2024), each song by the Canadian duo made it into the playlist. From ‘Noisemaker’ (1 day after its release!), to ‘Fiction Feel’, ‘Come Over Here’, and ‘Connect the Dots’: all have been welcomed into the Jam of Today spheres already. Being well familiar with 4 of the 10 songs (or, 9, since ‘Are You There?’ is just a 10 second intro) on this album, the anticipation for this release was quite high.

Since Diamond Day is still very much under-the-radar, let me briefly introduce this band to you. Diamond Day is an indie/dream-pop duo from Montreal consisting of Béatrix Méthé on vocals and multi-instrumentalist Quinn Bachand taking care of the production. Bachand happens to be Grammy-nominated which makes a lot of sense, listening to this album. Throughout the entirety of ‘Connect the Dots’, the production levels are really solid, starting off right at the start. Diamond Day’s debut opens with title track ‘Connect the Dots’; an impressive synth-heavy, layered dream-pop song, lightly influenced by shoegaze, too. This variety of influences is something you’ll notice happening throughout the entire album. ’Not Going’ sounds like it’s written to a soundtrack of some early 00s Game Boy game, whereas ending song ‘Tina’ reminds me of the oeuvre of Lana Del Rey. Overall, Diamond Day is constantly exploring the boundaries of what dream-pop has to offer, thus crafting a mixture of unique and intimate dream-pop songs. ‘Connect the Dots’ turns out to be a fresh and original take on this genre.