She’s Not All That

Here are some terms rock critics — always in search of fresh rock-critic terms — have used to describe the music/persona of SoCal singer/songwriter Chloe Day: “predatory,” “lethal,” “seductive,” “eerie,” “hypnotic,” “trashy,” “vaguely dangerous.” We’re here to tell you that Day’s not all that, but just a St. Louis refugee who’s used her off-beat beauty and some ripped fishnets to get herself noticed. Voilà! It worked. Sorta.

Day’s music, va-va-va-voomed by various small-time Web sites and mid-market publications, consists of her breathless schoolgirl moan layered over a backdrop of what the performer calls “elements of trip-hop and electronica [mixed] with dark acoustics.” So why bother to see her show? Well, she does show flashes of promise as a songwriter – especially lyrically – and she is artistically striking, if a bit (ooh, good rock-critic term!) calculating. And there are those fishnets…