12.26.07
Posted in Album reviews, Year-end lists at 1:28 am by Ruh
My goodness. I must be the last blogger out there to do this list. Merry Christmas, Rblog reader(s) …
NOTE: Many of the tracks are on a temporary server (and not direct download) because I’ve been having hours of trouble with the Rblog upload interface, but whenever I get that back on track, they will be here in a more permanent state. Sorry about that.
Anyway, onward! The top 10 albums of 2007, Ruh-styles, are:
10. Amy Winehouse, Back to Black
Island. March 13 (USA)
(This might be fudging a little, since Back to Black was released in the UK in late 2006, but didn’t make it across the pond until this year. I hope you’ll forgive me.) This album surprised me; all the hype, the screaming fangirls, and Winehouse’s tabloid fodder did not an interested Ruhee make, but when I finally listened, it was nothing like I expected. Instead of trashy dance-pop R&B, Winehouse has crafted a vintage soul album with serious throwbacks to Motown, tied together with one remarkable set of pipes. Whether or not this album is your cup of tea, there is no denying the girl can sing. Some of the songs are a little take-or-leave, but “Rehab” … oh man. A catchier single there never was. This album is a bit of a guilty pleasure sometimes, but it is a good one.
Listen: Tears Dry On Their Own
09. Spiral Beach, Ball
Sparks. October 16
I’ve been waffling back and forth on this band for a while. I saw them open for Sloan twice near the beginning of this year; one of the shows was really excellent and the other left me fairly ambivalent. Their first album, self-titled, was good in places and a little grating in others, and I expected the same from Ball when it was released this fall. However, it was definitely not so. This record is full of spacey dance-rock numbers, all short and flashy, and much tighter than the last album. “Made of Stone” sounds a thousand times better than it did live, months before this record hit the shelves, and “Kind of Beast” and “We Saw Ghosts” are particularly enjoyable. Spiral Beach has their own distinctive sound (love it or hate it), and they’re becoming more comfortable with it here. At this rate, their third album will be a real treat.
Listen: Made of Stone
08. The Acorn, Glory Hope Mountain
Paper Bag. October 1
This is another album I’m glad I managed to hear before the year was out, or my list of “belated top albums of the year” would have been remarkably long. The Acorn are a band that are certainly well rooted in folk and country, but who put a remarkably fresh spin on the whole package. Glory Hope Mountain is very similar to Cuff the Duke, but in a less rock, more laid-back sort of way; particular favourites are “Oh Napoleon” and “Low Gravity,” the former quiet and sweeping, the latter energetic and danceable. This is a band who know what they want and how to go about creating it, and the end result is equal parts hoedown and slow dance.
Listen: Low Gravity
07. Cuff the Duke, Sidelines of the City
Hardwood. October 23
Speaking of Cuff the Duke (I didn’t do that on purpose, I promise!) … the third full-length album from Ontario country-rock favourites is just what we were hoping for. The album is very cohesive and the songwriting strong, although sometimes the lyrics feel a little contrived, namely “Long Road”. Standout tracks include “Failure to Some” (a track I had no idea was 7 minutes long until I looked at it in my iTunes just now!), which features a now-classic Cuff the Duke build-up ending; “If I Live Or If I Die,” which has shades of BRMC’s “Shuffle Your Feet”; and the closing track, “Confessions from a Parkdale Basement”. There are numerous references to suburbs where members of the band grew up (such as in “Rossland Square”) and to Toronto itself, which makes the entire album feel rooted somewhere, like it belongs somewhere. I’m not sure if I would say it’s their best album, but it is a solid one that I’ll be listening to for a while.
Listen: If I Live Or If I Die
06. Rufus Wainwright, Release the Stars
Geffen. May 15
I hadn’t heard a single track off this album until I saw Rufus perform a large handful of them live in July. Wearing lederhosen. If ever there was a way to sell a Rufus album, that was it. Wainwright’s newest effort is a complex, beautifully-executed piece of work, much of it about traveling, different cities, and being discontent with staying in one place. That theme lends a whole lot of interest to the record, since it does much the same thing musically; it never stays in one place very long, preferring to veer around and tell stories in different ways, although never going too far from Wainwright’s familiar lilting style. Particular favourites: “Going to A Town” (especially the cheeky I’m so tired of you, America), “Sanssouci,” and the title track. This album makes me want to just hop on an airplane and tour the world with not much except a change of clothes, a camera and some music for the road.
Listen: Sanssouci
05. Two Hours Traffic, Little Jabs
Bumstead. July 24
A messy-haired, power pop foursome from the East Coast … no, there were no new Sloan records this year; instead, Joel Plaskett protégés Two Hours Traffic’s brand new full length, full of smiles and singalongs. There are no skipable tracks on this album, although their style is streamlined enough that they all bleed together a little. The band is extremely tight, live and on record, and their joyful brand of pop-rock is pretty infectious. Little Jabs is full of standout tracks, including the single “Stuck for the Summer”, “Nighthawks”, and “Jezebel,” although if the list went on long enough it would include the whole record. Sometimes the lyrics get a little too cutesy, but overall, this is an excellent album from a band I’m sure we will be hearing from often in the new year.
Listen: Nighthawks
04. Nathan, Key Principles
Nettwerk. March 20
Nathan are such darlings. This album is cute and folky and full of really well written songs that get stuck in your head, all the time, with a delicious amount of banjo (courtesy Shelley Marshall). One thing they are sure not to do, though, is get too stuck in the folk mentality; there is plenty of pop here, with horns and handclaps everywhere you turn, and it balances everything out perfectly. Songs like “The Wind” and “Terrible Way to See Omaha” conjure up images of the sweeping prairie, while “Daffodils” is one of those that would make little toddlers bop around in the living room. Key Principles is sunny and warm on first listen, but its solid songwriting and excellent vocals (Keri Latimer, with Marshall) make it complex enough to not get tossed by the wayside. It’s an album that feels like home, down to the hand-stitched album art; listening to it is akin to curling up with hot chocolate in your favourite blanket and watching the clouds go by.
Listen: The Wind
03. The New Pornographers, Challengers
Matador. August 21
You might remember a review of this I did earlier, which ended up fairly lukewarm. And it’s true, Challengers is the most mellow and cohesive of all of the Pornographers’ albums, but the more I listened to it throughout the rest of the year, the more I grew to love it. My favourite tracks still remain the first two (”My Rights Versus Yours”, which was the first single, I believe, and “All the Old Showstoppers”), but there’s a lot of hidden goodness after that. “Adventures in Solitude” is extremely sparse and perfect, and “Entering White Cecilia” is quirky and fun. Challengers is nothing like Mass Romantic’s craziness, where it seems they tried to fit in as much as possible; here, they have grown up a little and focused on one direction. That’s not to say it’s not a classic New Pornos album, because it is. There’s still the weird Dan Bejar material, the singalongs, and the remarkable amount of melodica-fueled riffs; they’ve just learned to channel it a little more, and out of that comes a commendably mature but totally enjoyable record. There’s not much they’ve done that I don’t like, and that trend still continues.
Listen: All The Old Showstoppers
02. Joel Plaskett Emergency, Ashtray Rock
Songs for the Gang. April 17
This is listed as #2, but for all intents and purposes, the top two albums of this year are a tie. And so, the first top album of 2007: Ashtray Rock, the Joel Plaskett Emergency’s third effort (Plaskett’s fifth as a solo artist post-Hermit). It would be impossible to say everything about this album in a paragraph, but Ross has conveniently done most of the talking about it; my two cents, though, would include praising the excellent transitions between songs - it makes you want to always listen to the whole thing, top to bottom, which is quite a feat - and the repetition of ideas throughout (I like the instrumentals, for example). And lately, I’d have to argue that one of the best moments of the record is in fact “The Instrumental,” complete with the letter, and the roller coaster it takes you through in just three minutes - a concise summary of the entire story of Ashtray Rock with almost no words at all.
Plaskett’s crafting of a ‘concept album’ has worked wonderfully here, and by the end of Ashtray you become completely attached to the characters whose stories he tells. I loved the record from the get-go, but the more I listen to it, the more I become attached - even, yes, to “Fashionable People”, which I think is a hilarious and quirky addition to the otherwise more streamlined album. Plaskett is never afraid to do something a little silly when he feels like it, and dammit, he will; and from falsetto to “Face of the Earth,” the end result is one of his most enjoyable albums yet.
Listen: Snowed In/Cruisin’
01. Field Music, Tones of Town
Memphis. January 22
That’s right. An album released just barely three weeks into the new year is topping my list. Unheard of, in the short term memory world of music blogging and downloaders, but not impossible … and this year, the honour goes to a band hailing from Sunderland, England, on their sophomore release that really sounds like nothing else I’ve ever run into. Certainly comparisons can be drawn to the Futureheads (unsurprising, as they have shared members) - think that sound, but brighter, cleaner, and as tight and quirky as can be. Field Music are, underneath, really prog-rockers, but not in the sense of Rush or Floyd; they do rip off Yes a lot, though, and their sound is particularly poppy. Tones of Town is an incredibly well-crafted record that flows together in a particularly satisfying way. “Give It Lose It Take It”, the opening track, features an excellent use of open strings; “Working to Work,” the first track that I heard from the album, is maddeningly catchy (I’m serious; I think it’s been stuck in my head since April).
My favourite track, though, is the final one, “She Can Do What She Wants”. Meter changes, possibilities for air-drumming, and an excellent opportunity to sing along in earnest English falsetto. There’s not much better. Tones of Town is, as far as I’m concerned, the best record to come out of 2007 (or tied for it, anyway), and one that will stand up for a long time to come. It’s tight, it’s layered, it’s hard to pin down completely; Field Music, if they come back from their projected hiatus, is going to have a hell of a time following this act.
Listen: She Can Do What She Wants
Honourable mentions (sort of):
Albums I wish I’d heard in full so they could be listed
Basia Bulat, Oh, My Darling
Caribou, Andorra
Stars, In Our Bedroom After the War
Blue Rodeo, Small Miracles
Rogue Wave, Asleep At Heaven’s Gate
Albums I wish I liked a little better
Small Sins, Mood Swings
Nick Lowe, At My Age
Paul McCartney, Memory Almost Full
Rush, Snakes and Arrows
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12.22.07
Posted in Concert reviews, Year-end lists at 12:42 pm by Ruh
Here we are. I’m still alive, and still doing musical things, although my lack of presence here would seem to suggest the contrary. However, without further ado, my list of the 10 best live shows I attended this year, starting with:
10. “Wild Stags & Pretty Mares”; The Embassy (Toronto), April 09
A tiny country night featuring members of The Bicycles, Henri Faberge & The Adorables, Paso Mino (otherwise Jason Collett’s backing band), Cuff the Duke and led by a Nudie-suited, Gram-Parsons-imitating Andy Lloyd (now of Caribou), this night was a pleasant surprise. Two sets of classic country covers, including a perfect singalong of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” to end the night, in Toronto’s smallest bar. The timing was right, and the smiles were huge. I never wanted to leave.
09. Sloan; Town Ballroom (Buffalo), March 13
Tacked onto a small part of their giant Never Hear the End of It tour and preceding some SXSW showcases, the Town Ballroom date was rescheduled from the previous November or so due to unforeseen problems at the venue (the audience was actually assembled waiting for doors to open when they were told the date would have to be postponed). And the band delivered, finally pulling out some older stuff to flesh out the standard tour setlist (”I Hate My Generation” and “Delivering Maybes” stand out particularly). Out of all the Sloan shows I’ve seen - and I’ve seen a good number - this was probably the most enjoyable and energetic. And it didn’t hurt that this happened.
08. Neko Case, the Good Brothers, Oh Susanna, the Sadies; Prince’s Island Park (Calgary), July 28
The Calgary Folk Music Festival is a highlight of my summer every year, and this past year was the first time I’ve dared to do all four days of it. It’s an experience, to say the very least. The very best parts of it, though, are not the individual performances, but the workshops; a handful of artists are thrown together, sometimes completely blindly, and have an hour to entertain you. This one was a little more thought out, as all the artists have worked fairly extensively with each other (and in the case of the Sadies and the Good Brothers, are closely related), and it turned into an hour of the best country music I’ve ever witnessed. Add Dallas Good belting out “Higher Power” while hundreds of festivalgoers are flopped in the grass in the July sunshine, and you have the best hour of the summer.
07. Brent Randall & His Pinecones; Emmedia Gallery (Calgary), August 5
I am never able to say enough about the Pinecones; they get more and more fun every time I see them. This show was no exception, although Laura Peek was sadly absent; there weren’t more than thirty people in attendance, at a tiny space run by the Alberta College of Art & Design, but they managed to get everyone up, dancing, and having a grand old time. “In Horsedrawn Delight” was a particular highlight, as well as their standard Turtles cover of “You Baby” (talk about dancing material!), but my absolute favourite part of the night was their unexpected addition of another cover, which happened to be Paul McCartney’s “Monkberry Moon Delight” … with Jess Lewis as Linda, and Brent as an uncanny McCartney, it completely brought the house down and cemented my idea that this band has a long and excellent time ahead.
06. Jon-Rae and the River, Jim Byrnes, Crooked Still; Prince’s Island Park (Calgary), July 28
Another folk festival workshop. I waffled between this and Jon-Rae and the River’s actual concerts, and it was a close race, but this won out for one reason: Jon-Rae and Jim Byrnes, sharing the lead vocals on “Does Anybody Here Love My Jesus,” with a powerhouse gospel backing band on one of the tiny side stages in the middle of the afternoon. I hadn’t even planned to see this workshop, and was on my way somewhere else, but the moment Jim started singing, I turned around and came back. If ever there were two people who needed to collaborate all the time, it is these two. The chorus was tagged about ten times, the entire band was belting out the words, and even the audience was all singing along. Christian or not, that deserved a hell of an Amen.
05. Nick Lowe; Mod Club Theatre (Toronto), September 24
This show rocked, and it rolled, and it shocked me to no end that it could do both of those things with just Nick and an acoustic guitar. “7 Nights to Rock” was just as barn-burning as it could have been with an entire band, and of course the obligatory “Cruel to Be Kind” was perfect. The actual quiet acoustic side of things, though, was equally impressive; “Indian Queens”, one of my favourites of the night, had all the charm of a fireside singalong. Years and years after his most famous work, Nick Lowe is still an incredible entertainer - and of course, seeing a legend such as him in the first place was enough. If only his new album didn’t suck.
04. Rich Aucoin; Broken City (Calgary), June 1
For those who are unaware, Rich has created his entire album to synch up to the cartoon of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”, and in the summer, he toured across Canada playing the album in its entirety while showing the Grinch cartoon behind him. It was definitely one of the more unique concert experiences of the last year, and executed marvelously. Aucoin’s music stands alone well enough, sort of a hybrid between Sufjan Stevens and the Flaming Lips (occasionally with added poppy elements), but when you add the excitement of synchronized sound and visuals, it is fantastic. The fact that we were seeing a Christmas cartoon in a stiflingly hot bar in June took away none of the magic; Aucoin knows what he’s doing. See the synch in whole or part here.
03. Rush; Pengrowth Saddledome (Calgary), July 18
Rush might be getting up there in years, but they have yet to forget how to rock. This was my first experience seeing the prog power trio live, and it blew my mind. Three hours, with a small intermission, of just Rush. Old stuff, new stuff, obscure stuff, everything. Highlights include the giant video screens projecting weird visuals during most of the songs (”Main Monkey Business” was, uh, rather strange), and the occasional video introduction to songs, one featuring Bob & Doug McKenzie. The best featured South Park, with a SP Geddy Lee, introducing “Tom Sawyer” (which proceeded to completely destroy everybody in attendance; I saw a 50-year-old woman air drumming like her life depended on it). Personal highlight: “A Passage to Bangkok” and “YYZ” in the encore. I probably deafened Ross, who was unfortunate enough to be sitting beside me at the time. C’est la vie.
02. Joel Plaskett Emergency w/guests; Horseshoe Tavern (Toronto), December 14
Yeah, this was a whopping week ago, and I had trouble deciding whether it would be the first or second on this list because it was that good. Plaskett played six nights in a row at the Horseshoe to celebrate its 60th anniversary, and each night (except the final one) featured one of his albums played in its entirety to start things off. A better idea I have never heard. This night was his newest masterpiece, Ashtray Rock, which in itself was a fantastic experience to see start to finish, especially with the addition of “Blood in My Veins”. The album is extremely cohesive and packs a serious punch live, but the most mind-blowing events occurred when, after the album set, who should walk out but former Hermit (and previous Emergency) bassist Ian McGettigan (!!!). He, Dave Marsh, and Plaskett proceeded to play a couple Clayton Park rockers (”Oh My Soul” and “From the Back of the Film”), the closest we will probably ever get to a Thrush Hermit reunion. All I could say after the show was “oh my God, that was awesome.” I guess that sums it up.
01. Pagliaro; Club Soda (Montreal), October 5
As soon as this show was over I knew there was nothing that was quite going to top it, although the aforementioned JPE show can be considered a tie. Michel Pagliaro, now considerably older and more grey-haired than he was at the time of his biggest hits, has not forgotten how to put on a fantastic rock show. His band was searing, as tight as can be, and he was bouncing all over the stage having a blast. I knew very few songs going into the show, and I came out a total fan. I have never danced so hard as I did during “J’entends frapper,” with its multiple final choruses (no one wanted it to really end), his guitarist letting loose with Townshend windmills left, right and centre. “Lovin’ You Ain’t Easy” was just as great as I had hoped it would be, and “Rainshowers,” “Ti-bidon,” “Emeute dans la prison,” “Dangereux” … there’s not enough to say about Pagliaro, and there probably will never be, but suffice to end with the statement that my face got totally rocked off. Sometimes things you do on impulse are the best ones.
Honourable mentions, chronologically:
New Pornographers, Nathan Phillips Square (Toronto)
Joel Plaskett Emergency, Grand Theatre (Calgary)
Tragically Hip, Pengrowth Saddledome (Calgary)
Small Sins, The Supermarket (Toronto)
Rich Hope, The Dakota (Toronto)
and, of course, 6 nights of the Joel Plaskett Emergency at the Horseshoe (Toronto); post forthcoming.
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12.20.07
Posted in Concert reviews, Year-end lists at 12:18 pm by Ross
1. Josh Ritter @ The Power Plant, February 19th
Read the original review: “There was cheering after every amazing song, yes, but during them… every person in the joint was terrified to utter the slightest sound and disrupt the painstaking dreamweaving. I’ve never seen the likes of it.”
2. Mute Math w/ Pilot Speed @ Dinwoodie Lounge, September 13th
Read the original review: “Throughout the set, faces were well and truly melted, as [singer Paul] Meany did handsprings over his keyboard, Roy Mitchell-Cardenas rocked an upright bass, and in the main-set concluding percussive jam, [drummer Darren] King towered above the roused masses, hauling around his floor tom and even rapping out a beat on the drum stool.”
3. Joel Plaskett Emergency w/ Peter Elkas @ The Starlite Room, May 12th
Read Ruhee’s review of the Calgary show a few days later: “I wouldn’t be surprised if someone had told me that my feet had ceased to touch the ground from that moment forward.”
4. The Tragically Hip @ Pengrowth Saddledome, Calgary, July 15th
Read the original review: “I might complain that their setlists are veering towards the bigger, cheesier hits (though I will never complain about hearing ‘Fireworks’ over ‘Poets’), or that Gord Downie has chosen elaborate stage antics over entertaining makeshift storytelling or dizzying stream-of-consciousness rants. But regardless of external stimuli, this band rocks your pants off, guaranteed.”
5. Stars w/ Miracle Fortress @ Edmonton Event Centre, November 21st
Read the original review: “But whatever the differences on display, and wherever Stars diverged and converged throughout the evening, things came rather magnificently together at the end of the main set, with the triple-punch combo of ‘Your Ex-Lover Is Dead’, ‘Ageless Beauty’ (which can’t help but fall slightly short of its pristine recorded version), and the title track from In Our Bedroom After The War; sing-alongs all.”
6. Weird Al Yankovic @ Capital Ex’s Edfest, July 25th
Read the original review: “Judging from the kids-of-all-ages crowd last night (in my immediate vicinity were 20-something hipsters, grey-haired retirees, parents, teenage girls, and, of course, boys in the throes of puberty), perhaps [Yankovic’s juvenality] hasn’t [proscribed his appeal]. And anyone there would be hard-pressed to admit that they didn’t enjoy themselves at least occasionally.”
7. The Thermals @ The Velvet Underground, October 19th
Read the original review: “Frontman Hutch Harris crowed impressively but was perhaps short on bantering charm (but then, it is punk rock), although the aesthetic appeal of bassist Kathy Foster’s bobbing hairdo more than made up for it. They closed the main set with the relentless ‘A Pillar of Salt’ (’I carry my bay-bayyyyy!’), and the encore included a band theme song. What else can you ask for from a sweaty concert in a basement club?”
8. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists @ The Starlite Room, October 20th
Read the original review: “But as incredible as the overwhelming rock of his songs was, when Leo relaxed and chatted with various shouting hipster louts on the floor below him, things continued to be entertaining, if not becoming more so.”
9. Queens of the Stone Age w/ Cage The Elephant @ Shaw Conference Centre, August 29th
Read the original review: “By the time the perfect rock single ‘Little Sister’ scratched the collective itch for cowbell, things had gotten mammoth. Fire and brimstone. The taller men’s faces were permanently scarred from the force of the high-volume wickedness. Myriad vicarious erections rose in the sweaty mist. Satan cackled and chomped a stogie made from the severed fingers of virgins. It could barely be believed.”
10. The Dandy Warhols w/ The Upsidedown @ Edmonton Event Centre, May 30th
Read the original review: “All those catchy, well-circulated singles we’re used to hearing don’t do the band justice; they’re rather more of a jammy, feel sort of band, building a mesmeric groove largely based on oddly-striking keyboard wizard Zia McCabe’s rather impressive low-end work.”
Honourable Mentions: Broken Social Scene w/ Woodpigeon @ Edmonton Event Centre, December 15th; Rush @ Pengrowth Saddledome, July 18th; The New Pornographers @ Edmonton Event Centre, October 11th; The Wheat Pool @ O’Byrnes Irish Pub, December 17th; Van Morrison @ Rexall Place, February 28th; Cuff The Duke w/ Land of Talk @ Dinwoodie Lounge, November 16th; Sloan w/ Small Sins, Capital Ex’s Edfest, July 21st; In-Flight Safety w/ Young Galaxy @ The Velvet Underground, June 15th.
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12.18.07
Posted in Year-end lists at 2:57 pm by Ross
1. Joel Plaskett Emergency - Ashtray Rock
As well-liked as East-Coast cult-heroes Thrush Hermit were, their 1999 breakup was the best thing to happen to erstwhile frontman Joel Plaskett. His solo albums have grown steadily in breadth, depth, and quality of expression, and their progression has lead to a modern masterpiece, a truly classic CanRock album whose twilight-vision anthems will endure for decades to come: the absorbing, charming, entertaining, and moving Ashtray Rock, Rossblog’s Album of the Year for 2007…
Which is not to say, of course, that Ashtray Rock is a flawless album by any means. But I begin with a consideration of its missteps because even they are part of its peculiar genius, its singular aesthetic impact. Album-closing quasi-hidden-track-fragment “Outroduction” is somewhat needless, sure, but it’s lead single “Fashionable People” that works the least of all of the tracks here. Though Plaskett’s target - the thoughtless sexual irresponsibility of the young and scene-y - is a worthy one for satire, he doesn’t quite know when to stop here. A shuffle-pop tune that might have been amusing enough at two-and-a-half to three minutes, “Fashionable People” backslides into inanity and interminability at more than four, and is hardly helped by a lazy rhyme of “loaded” with, well, “loaded”…
And yet, even a blemish like this has a vital role in the final analysis. “Fashionable People” is basically a very silly party-rock song of the sort that the Emergency is often pigeonholed as being entirely reliant upon, and is surrounded by the similarly-minded but more generally successful “Drunk Teenagers” and “Penny For Your Thoughts”. But far from sinking Ashtray Rock under an initial storm-surge of frivolity, these intensely catchy but helplessly shallow pop slices grant it a sense of naive juvenile joy that the more soulful later cuts (more on them in a moment) temper with experienced, wearied wordliness. Whether or not Ashtray Rock’s narrative thread is entirely evident, the way it is sequenced gives it the illusion of maturation over its running time; the album grows up before your very ears, and it’s a wonderful experience…
As the album drives through the smooth blues-jam “Snowed In / Cruisin’” and into the immensely affecting ode to troubled adoration “Face of the Earth” and “Nothing More To Say”, a break-up song of unflinching certainty, the youthful giddiness of the opening tracks takes on an autumnal tinge of elegiac sadness in retrospect, and upon later listens. Impeccable pop hooks, witty lyrics, and forceful performances aside, this lining of melancholy is what makes Ashtray Rock truly great. Plaskett knows that life isn’t all handclaps and tambourine-slaps. Too much rock and roll damages your hearing, when you drink too much you throw up, and hooking up with every cute hipster thing that crosses your path can have heavy consequences. For its insight as much as for its infectiousness, Ashtray Rock is the year’s finest LP…
Highlight: Although “Soundtrack For The Night” is the record’s perfect closing statement as well as a largely-unforgettable pop anthem, Ashtray Rock’s emotional climax comes just before, in the suite-like cycle of “Chinatown / For The Record” and the long-anticipated “The Instrumental”. The former is simply gorgeous, packed tight with regret and pathos like dynamite in a mountainside, and when Plaskett croons vulnerably “This one’s for the record / and the record’s for you” and the opening acoustic strums of “The Instrumental” light the fuse, a pure rock explosion soon follows, an instrumental as potent and impressive as you’ll ever hear. And that’s to say nothing of the track’s poetic spoken-word letter that is perhaps the most oddly moving moment of an album full of oddly moving moments…
Download: “Drunk Teenagers”
2. Radiohead - In Rainbows
The incessant buzzing around this record’s digital release has nearly drowned out the fact that In Rainbows is Radiohead’s most full-blooded, appealing, and living album since OK Computer. At this point in their notable career, Radiohead can never again return to the comparatively-conventional art-rock sound lamented after by the legions of trad-rock fans that their brasher early work has yoked them with. Truthfully, they have jettisoned any sort of predictable verse-chorus structural apparatus entirely, building genuinely affecting post-modern constructs out of disparate alloys of rock, electronica, and even classical music…
In Rainbows is shot through with beautiful fragility in fits and starts, although the ominous shadows of hegemonic behemoths cast themselves hither and thither: in standout “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi”, Thom Yorke warbles with the voice that launched a thousand wimpy-Brit-pop-wanker ships over Ed O’Brien and Johnny Greenwood’s impeccable titular guitar forms, but about what? Being “picked over by the wolves”, and tempted by your eyes. “All I Need” builds to the next-best-thing to a crescendo, but never loses its foreboding low-end organ vibrations. “House Of Cards” (”the infrastructure will collapse / from carpet spikes”) is never merely lovely or merely terrifying, but winds up kind of being both. And even the breathtaking “Nude” is permeated by an intensely-intelligent alienation that belies its windswept melody. No matter how they chose to take it public, In Rainbows sees Radiohead, once again, as a band very much worth investing in. And remember: pay what you will…
Highlight: Amidst myriad mid-tempo dreamweavings, the unforgiving paranoiac-dance-party that is “Bodysnatchers” was always bound to stand out. But it’s still as mind-blowing a concoction as they’ve ever produced: Yorke in fascinating, dynamic form (”a pale imitation / with the edges / sawn off”), the guitars chainsawing, corkscrewing, and filleting every juicy, unsuspecting chord in sight, and the best rhythm section in rock cutting a mean groove into the fleshy earth. And the brief sci-fi-sound interlude about a minute in surprises me every time (and prises out an appreciative laugh most of those times, too). Plus: “I’ve no idea what I’m talking about / I’m trapped in this body and can’t get out”. Most quotable couplet in the history of Radiohead, no foolin’…
Download: “Bodysnatchers”
3. Josh Ritter - The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter
Two years running, Ritter has the #3 record of the year on Rossblog; there’s some satisfying symmetry to that which convinces me to put Historical Conquests at this spot more than its actual quality, even. Placing it this high on the list may well be overestimating it, but then The Animal Years was much better than third last year (clearly I must not have really listened to it at all if I truly thought Snow Patrol’s Eyes Open was a better album). So this is my attempt to restore balance to the blogoverse, I suppose…
And really, Historical Conquests suffers only in comparison to its soon-to-be-legendary predecessor; when compared to actual, human musical production and not the supernatural angel-pop of The Animal Years, this is a pretty outstanding piece of work. Much was made, by Ritter foremost, of his looser, freer approach this time around, and certainly his lyrical imagery is less precise while still being singular and flawless: in the raucous “Rumors”, he’s “fighting fire with arrows” and putting “a whip to the kick drum”; the buoyant “Right Moves” has crickets leaping up to meet the moon “with a standing ovation”; and the killer opening track “To The Dogs Or Whoever” pursues mythical and elusive feminist icons with breathless desperation, even “deep in the belly of the whale”, if need be. There are several more conventional moments, but some of these are among Historical Conquests’ triumphs, not least of all the wrenchingly empathetic “Still Beating”. Not exactly a step up from The Animal Years, but yet another finely-tuned album from one of America’s most talented young songwriters…
Highlight: Sonically traditional but lyrically gobsmacking, “The Temptation of Adam” juxtaposes a fragile isolated love with the alienating threat of nuclear annihilation, emerging from a buried missile silo with a renewed sense of romantic survivalism in the face of encroaching conflict (”Pretend this giant missile is an old oak tree instead / carve our name in hearts into the warhead”). Beautiful, funny, touching, and even vaguely worrisome, this may be the song of the year, period…
Download: “The Temptation of Adam”
4. The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
As long as we’re on the topic of follow-ups that don’t quite stack up to the beloved records that precede them but still accomplish something special of their own accord, we might as well deal with the Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible. Is it Funeral? Thank god, no. It’s its own nervous, fitful beast, an album springing from a restless, uncertain contemporaneous culture rather than from the contextless personal space of Funeral. The songs wind and thrash their way to naggingly unsatisfying conclusions, pile on layers and momentum until they reach climaxes that fade before you can grab ahold of them, and foreshadow a penultimate enlightenment that never comes (certainly not in the joyless division of “My Body Is A Cage”, although the re-jigged “No Cars Go” offers a more anthemic stab at closure). Neon Bible is a harder album to love than Funeral, but cuts like “Keep The Car Running”, “Windowsill”, and “Ocean of Noise” reward diligence and reveal their aching hearts only with longer acquaintance. Despite muted underground bleatings to the contrary, Neon Bible further cements the Arcade Fire as one of the world’s most exciting rock bands…
Highlight: “(Antichrist Television Blues)”, needless titular bracketing aside, is this curious LP’s high-water mark, and Arcade Fire par excellence: sonic simplicity deepened by its exquisite layering and arrangement, echoed scraping guitars, heart-monitor bass, and sudden violin swoons, with Win Butler holding our rapt attention with every syllable. It’s the thematics that make this one, however: it’s a conflicted, compelling tale of “a God-fearing man” who works and believes and bleeds so his beloved daughter can lead a privileged life that inevitably involves a heartbreaking sundering from him. It’s tremendously affecting, and it shows Butler’s demographic canniness: behind most every bourgeois purveyor of sophisticate indie-rock is a humble parent (or two) who “were working downtown for the minimum wage” so their progeny can have the life they want, making art for a living. And don’t you forget it…
Download: “(Antichrist Television Blues)”
5. The Wheat Pool - Township
Comingling Blue Rodeo, early Wilco, the Tragically Hip and (obviously) Neil Young, Edmonton’s Brothers Angus made a slow stunner of an alt-country-rock album, graced by indelible melodies and universally-appealing themes. The proceedings may be a mite too country than is fashionable at the moment, but one of the best things about Township is how it manipulates generic expectations so effortlessly and effectively…
The record is thematically grounded in classic country-music subjects like love and loss, distance and isolation, movement and the lack thereof, for sure. But for every obviously-country inflection (Mike Angus’ twang on “I took the highway / south to Calgary” in “Whyte Avenue” being the most inescapable), there’s soaring melodies in three-part harmony (”Between You And Me”), jaunty Britpop guitar hooks (”Evergreen”), or powerful trad-rock highway-chording (”Geographic Centre of Canada”). Again and again, the songs work their way elegantly and intelligently to emotional satisfaction, without compromise and without fail. Township is also an extremely Western record, an album of relocation, of restlessness, of a lifelong search for a personal and national centre that, despite the title, cannot be pinpointed geographically (not merely a contemporaneous mood either, as the Louis Riel-focused “Peniel, SK” proves). The Anguses capture the particular landless feeling of Western youth with skill and agility, and that’s what makes their debut so thoroughly fantastic…
Highlight: Epic closer “Phone Book” is the climactic emotional peak in an album full of them. Glen Erickson’s guitar leads are consistently impressive throughout the album, but here they achieve transcendence, pushing Robb Angus’ lovely melody higher and faster until the vocalist can do nothing more to check himself but bark out an anguished four-count (an echo of the one that kicks off the rousing opener “Geographic Centre of Canada”) and wail in harmony with his brother “Boy, you’re looking bad / from all the alcohol and cigarettes you’ve had”. It’s, frankly, amazing, and one of my favourite musical moments of the year…
Download: “Geographic Centre of Canada”
6. Iron & Wine - The Shepherd’s Dog
Sam Beam is sort of undeniable at this point. He has his own indie-folk niche that can’t ever really be challenged, and The Shepherd’s Dog brilliantly re-enshrines him as a unique songwriter of intimidating talents. Like Josh Ritter, Beam departed this year from the lighter creations that brung him to the alt-roots dance to some extent, finding the time for more percussive outings like “White Tooth Man” and the excellent ragtime shuffle “The Devil Never Sleeps” alongside the staple ballads of incredulous beauty like “Resurrection Fern” and “Flightless Bird, American Mouth”. It all adds up to another album of perfectly-flawed tragic backwoods magic from a rising great…
7. MIA - Kala
I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard Maya Arulpragasam’s multichromatic po-co hip-hop referred to as “irritating” by people who really ought to know better than to make themselves into ignorantly ethnocentric imperialists with such foolishness. Art, I suppose, can be irritating, but then it really ought to be, shouldn’t it? But I find Kala to be irresistible on a pop level and impressive on an artistic level, that rarest and most precious of balancing acts. It’s a jumbled post-world-music mixtape of our jumbled post-globalization reality, nowhere more so than on the catchy and toothy “Paper Planes”, with its gunshot percussion and lyrical references to pre-paid wireless, UPS trucks and the KGB. And now and then, Maya will say something like “I put people on a map / that never seen a map” (in the Pixies-sampling “20 Dollar”) that is either completely ludicrous or brilliantly accurate… but is more likely both.
8. Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger
Ryan Adams’ unconstant muse finally forgave his hard-boozin’ country-rogue ways and took up residency on his couch again on Easy Tiger, his most consistent collection since Gold in 2001. Here, he’s able to pen and croon the sort of bleeding-heart ballads that he’s always capable of at his best (”The Sun Also Sets”, with its hang-glider chorus, is the highlight of these, though “These Girls” works pretty well of its accord), while still letting loose with appealingly silly rockers like “Halloweenhead”. And album closer “I Taught Myself to Grow Old” sees Adams aging with elegiac resignation, deploying familiar lyrical images for maximum emotional potency and generally appearing more Neil Young-like than ever before, even in a career rooted so firmly in appearing Neil Young-like as Adams’ has been. But… why the emphasized digital watch on the cover, hmm?
9. The Shins - Wincing The Night Away
They’re still too twee for words and owe far more to R.E.M. than any portion of their indie fanbase is completely comfortable to admit, but the Shins’ latest breaks with their well-weathered formula just enough to make it interesting in a way that another compilation of James Mercer’s obtuse acoustic-pop confabulations never would have been. “Phantom Limb” is their most classic single since “New Slang”, and “Australia”, for all its inbred Shininess, is still as catchy as malaria. But it’s songs like the tastefully-funky “Sea Legs” and mesmerizing album kickoff “Sleeping Lessons” that sets Wincing The Night Away apart from the spurious glut of wussy indie-rock that seems to increasingly multiply, phage-like, with every passing year. “Sleeping Lessons” explodes into a propulsive plateau in its closing half, or comes as tantalizing close to such a satisfying blow-out as Mercer’s boutique sound will allow, anyway. Too many of indie-rock’s premier acts make endless hay regurgitating their previously-successful work, a tactic that the genre’s acolytes delight in accusing more mainstream acts of practicing while missing the log in their own eye. It’s refreshing, therefore, to see one of the genre’s standard-bearers grasp at unfamiliar straws and succeed while doing so, and I don’t feel so bad in noting it…
10. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
This was in and out of this list various times this year, but Britt Daniel’s indie-shuffle outfit always makes music that is aesthetically impressive as well as damned fun, and it’s always easy to place their records amongst the best of any year. Ga x 5 incorporates a variety of strange little production experiments into the membranes of Spoon’s strange little pop songs, and, uniformly, it works wonders. Sultans of swing, scientists of soul. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga may be tenth on this list, but it’s unquestionably #1 in our booties…
Honorable Mentions:
Kevin Drew’s Spirit If…, no matter who’s “presenting” it, which cuts anthemic pop into ragged ribbons; Young Galaxy’s eponymous debut, which isn’t quite as epic as it thinks it is but also isn’t as self-important as it could’ve been; Field Music’s fleet-footed, progressive, and utterly British Tones of Town; Bedouin Soundclash’s Street Gospels; and The Stage Names by the often stunningly good Okkervil River.
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12.13.07
Posted in Year-end lists at 6:52 pm by Ross
1. The Arcade Fire - “Keep The Car Running”
It’s my customary practice to award the mantle of Rossblog’s Top Single of the Year to a song that achieved a level of mass cultural domination unlike anything else, while still being an interesting and appealing piece of pop art. But very little managed both of these things this year (certainly not to the extent of last year’s champ, Gnarls Barkley’s ubiquitous “Crazy”), so the criteria can be stretched a little to encompass this irresistible indie dittie. Covered (awesomely) by the Foo Fighters even before the now-legendary live collabo with the Boss, “Keep The Car Running” very quickly built up the critical inertia of an instant classic. And it achieves such tremendous potency from such simplicity: snaking guitar strums melding with fragile mandolin, the metallic-rattling rhythm that transforms into viscerally organic handclaps and back again, and Win Butler’s ever-compelling vocalizations of his ever-vague lyrical constructions. It’s profound and meaningless, eternal and disposable, timeless and timely. It’s another great pop single from a band that seems poised to produce great pop singles for years to come. And it’s the year’s best, to my mind…
Highlight: They are many, but Butler’s fainting wails of “When it’s coooo-ming…” about a minute-and-a-half in take a handful of cakes, particularly due to the way that they’re chased by the galloping return of that heart-pausing rhythm. And it makes for a flawless live shout-along, and that’s really what the Arcade Fire is all about at their best, isn’t it?
2. Bloc Party - “I Still Remember”
I’m beginning to think there ought to be a spot on this list reserved yearly for the Song That Sounded Most Like A U2 Song. Last year, it would have been Keane’s “Is It Any Wonder?”; the year before, probably something off of Coldplay’s X&Y; the year before that, “City of Blinding Lights”, by a band that ought to know a thing or two about sounding like U2: U2. But the once-extremely-promising Bloc Party snatched up the baton this spin around the sun, rendering the otherwise sluggish A Weekend In The City entirely worthwhile with this ringing paean to impossible yearning dwelling in its rear-quarters. Russell Lissack’s guitar lead is untouchable and endlessly repeatable, the churning rhythm writes its name on every train, and Kele Okereke preens with unvarnished rock-star elan. The lovesick theme may come across as trite, but anyone who has ever wanted someone they couldn’t have in a way they couldn’t explain would hardly see it as such, and Okereke’s evocative specificities turn the will to anthemic universality on its head. And I still can’t explain to my own satisfaction why “I kept your tie” is so intensely wrenching a line, after all these listens…
Highlight: Generally, Jacknife Lee’s lushly-orchestrated production hijacks Bloc Party’s idiomatic airship more often than it gets it afloat, but in this tune’s opening, he grants it lofty proportions. Lissack’s riff resonates like a plummeting chapel-bell from its very arrival; the song is markedly better every time it chimes out, and though it does so in several crescendos, it is nowhere more magnificent than in its initial iteration…
3. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - “Bomb. Repeat. Bomb.”
Listening to this, you’d think no one had ever written a protest song before. And thanks to Ted Leo, no one may ever have to again. Inaudible radio chatter is eviscerated by a four-count and razor-sharp fret-mutes, Leo spits relentless invective with vernacular verve, and the titular mantra takes not a single prisoner. This is sonic saturation-bombing, a response to the elided viciousness of war veritably drenched in like-minded righteous violence. Leo fights fire with fire, carves up dishonest imperialism with guitar-slices like machetes, and tosses smug disavowals (”in and out / no mess, no fuss”) back at their speakers like hunting knives. Comparisons ran to Rage Against the Machine, mainly because no one can think of anything as simultaneously angry and smart as this in recent memory, but Leo’s edges are sharper than even the mighty Rage. Which, from my point of view, is saying a ton…
Highlight: The chorus. The fucking chorus. Death by power riff, and this skinny bald dude can sure shred those vocal chords when he wants. A part of me wishes the American government would unilaterally invade more defenseless third-world authoritarian regimes just so Ted Leo can have more bullshit to scream about with this sort of rousing passion. Myanmar ain’t taken yet, is it?
4. The Hives - “Tick Tick Boom”
Internal debate will always roil about this band, whose kitschy stylistic conceits I only forgive because their unhinged garage-rock seems poised to careen off the surface of the planet every few seconds. But there’s no question they’re the coolest band ever to grace the soundtracks of a football video game and a pro wrestling pay-per-view in the same year (”Tick Tick Boom” featured in both). And, setting aside pending theses about the relative merits and drawbacks of rock and roll theatricality, this is a cracker of a single, and would be 2007’s superior cock-rock anthem if the similarly-explosive-themed selection just ahead of it on this list hadn’t also made its mark in the same period. Either way, it’s vintage Hives, only on overload: an insane riff that makes “Hate To Say I Told You So” look staid in comparison, Howlin’ Pelle in full effect, and more hooks than a coat check booth. All you need is eight words: “Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick… BOOM!”
Highlight: As infectious as those eight words are, as convincing as the band-produced explosion that follows them is, the kicker on this one is the surprising harmonized “yeaaaahhhhhhhh!” that kicks off the second verse. The eyes go wide when the cacophonous riff re-emerges heroically from that bit of classically rock-and-roll slang; perfectly cliched glory. Fantastic.
5. Ryan Adams - “Halloweenhead”
I’d say this is what happens when Ryan Adams lets loose, if he wasn’t already looser than a… well, he’s pretty loose, isn’t he? I’m not sure if Adams can ever be described as especially “fun”, but this is certainly as fun as his heartachey songwriting gets. Tower bells, chugging electric guitar and “here comes that shit again”, and that’s just the opening 30 seconds. It’s more than faintly ridiculous (okay, it’s totally ridiculous), but the chorus is impossibly indelible, an interweaving of words and riff in the listeners’ aural subconscious that makes them utterly inseparable, anticipating and then completing one another in a way that only a handful of great choruses can do (U2’s “Beautiful Day” comes immediately to mind). And we’re invited to picture Adams’ head as a jack-o-lantern filled with chocolate bars, Rockets, and possibly even Hubba Bubba. Don’t even try to tell me that isn’t a supremely rewarding bit of imaginative labour…
Highlight: “GUITAR SOLO!” And then… the guitar solo.
6. Arctic Monkeys - “Brianstorm”
Although they’ve always been a generally interesting band, the Monkeys finally produced a single that fully earns the breathless hype that has been their constant familiar since their lightning debut at the start of last year. Alex Turner’s laddy wit has a much better target here than some bird whom he bets looks good on the dancefloor: a white-tooth-grinning, t-shirt-and-tie-sporting, empty-headed, smug-pretty-boy young turk who invariably gets all those birds who look good on the dancefloor. And yet what makes it such a fascinating lyric is that Turner doesn’t only run the jerk down; when he unleashes his Yorkshire sorta-rap “so kind of you to bless us with your effortlessness / we’re grateful and so strangely comforted”, it’s not merely sarcasm. Brians, as skin-crawling as they are, are as necessary to the continued functioning of human civilization as sanitation systems or quality roads. Turner has often displayed a canny social-observational intelligence, and he’s in full form here. In addition, the unforgiving herky-jerky musical backing gives the rapid-fire lyrics a breathless momentum, and the speed of the hi-hats is more than a little intimidating. It’s all so quick, it’s hard to catch everything that’s going on, really. But it would be impossible to miss “See you later, innovator”, after all…
Highlight: In the song’s last forty seconds, Turner words spill out like imitation-diamonds on a display case as the guitars drop away and resonant toms are beaten into tumbling submission. The pause before that vivaciously bratty “thun-DUR” completes the package. I happen to quite love tunes that kick into life again halfway through, as if for the first time. “Brianstorm” achieves that palpably…
7. Wintersleep - “Weighty Ghost”
These Haligonian neo-indie-grunge purveyors have built a solid base of interest around artfully guttural crunch-rock mood-swings, but this acoustic-pop sing-along blazes some new trails through the murky forests of their established sound. Over a faux-lo-fi backing track built on uncanny echoes of “Give Peace A Chance”, vocalist Paul Murphy sings out every easy hook with unfailing clarity, down to those always-sneaky “na na nas”. But, like so many great pop singles, the shiny exterior disguises something (no pun intended) weightier: it’s all about being haunted the creeping spectre of mortality. And sometimes evocatively so, extreme catchiness aside…
Highlight: “Oh, where’s my body go? / Africa, or Mexico?” Simultaneously dumb and brilliant, and impossible to shake from your head for days.
8. Blonde Redhead - “23″
I’ve given this furiously global shoegaze group a shot before (I saw them live in 2004 or so), and though they certainly have a few handfuls of creative chops, I’ve always found them so archly, inaccessibly hipster as to render them largely lifeless in the long view. But the title track and lead single from their album of the same name has won me over completely. Kazu Makino’s thin, dreamy whimpers threaten to dovetail into tedium, but somewhere along the way, it becomes absolutely mesmerizing. The pulses and spikes of the designed-for-dedicated-swaying rhythmic undergrowth certainly don’t hurt either. Can’t make out a single lyric, but as a pure-feel recording, it works very well indeed…
Highlight: It’s hard to pick out any singular moment of this wash-of-conformity tune as its best, but the opening drift of electric-piano chords does stand out just enough…
9. Spoon - “The Underdog”
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga will either be an 11th-hour inclusion or exclusion from my Top Albums of 2007 list, but this sunny Jon-Brion-produced single is downright Spoon-a-licious. A cascade of strums and drum rolls to open (and to close), Britt Daniel’s peppy vocal and jaunty lyrics advising looser alternative living to pent-up squares everywhere, and declarative goodtime horns to fill the gaps. Perfectly-constructed, as all Spoon tunes tend to be. Hard to bet against it, ultimately…
Highlight: 1:40: “Can’t let go of it / uh huh”. Britt Daniel is the new Steely Dan. Yeah, he equals both of those guys. He’s that good on the mic, my children…
10. Green Day - “Working Class Hero”
This is bound to be contentious, but let me defend this cover on three grounds. First of all, Billie Joe Armstrong wrings every cranky, self-righteous syllable out of John Lennon’s blithely self-righteous lyric sheet, firmly re-emphasizing (if only accidentally) that, after the Fab Four, the Annointed Man-God in Rounded-Glasses had more in common with the pinched-up, self-involved emo downers of today than with the genius poet of withering honesty that he is so often mythologized as. Secondly, the production transforms the meandering agit-folk of the original into a cornball neo-classic-rock anthem, an approach which (despite its lack of tact) is much more apt to convey Lennon’s wild, inconsistent stabs of therapeutic wrath. And thirdly, “Working Class Hero” is so perfectly suited to Green Day’s post-American Idiot reincarnation as class crusaders for the legions of disaffected suburbanite punks, that if you didn’t know better, you’d think they had written it themselves. What could have been a complete butchering (see the rest of the Instant Karma compilation for more of those) is, instead, kind of an inspired piece of work. Bravo.
Highlight: Its final seconds, where a snatch of Lennon’s original recording interjects “If you wanna be a hero / well, just follow me”. Never before has that line sounded more like a creepily prophetic exhortation to futile martyrdom than it does here. One more bit of twisted brilliance, before you’re away…
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12.03.07
Posted in Year-end lists at 11:26 am by Ross
2007 wears inexorably to a conclusion, it seems, which means that Rossblog shall be given over largely to year’s-end listifying for the coming weeks. First up is the ever-ambiguous “musical happenings” of the year, which gives me a chance to talk about the occurrences that were notable either personally or popularly, in my view. These are, as always, rooted in my own peculiar opinions, so if you think something else of merit happened this year, please bring it up in the comments. Here we go, then…
Radiohead’s digital release of In Rainbows
The day will come when this act - one part artistic conviction, one part hubris, one part naked greed - will seem less brazen. Perhaps that day was October 11th, 2007, I’m not at liberty to say. But then, maybe this wonderful album by these wonderful art-fucks from Oxford did for digital music what Sgt. Pepper did for long-plays forty years ago today, which is hard-selling a new format for pop-music delivery with an outstanding and aesthetically inventive masterwork. Because a spoonful of sugar always helps the medicine go down. But, like Pepper (and perhaps unlike many albums since), In Rainbows was also an unabashed Event Album, uniting music nerds the world over to listen to the same brand new music at the same time in a way that no conventional release has done in many years. Maybe this is the true untapped potential of the digital music revolution: a return to universality in a sonic landscape defined for a good long while by generic fracturing and radio-format diffusion. Maybe it’s naive to believe that’s possible, but Radiohead made believing a little easier this year…
Britney Spears’ MTV VMA debacle
It shouldn’t be surprising that I have little patience for the overheated voyeurism of American celebrity tabloid culture; Perez Hilton is my blogging arch-nemesis, after all. Nor does it seem to me that Britney Spears’ continued music career has any meaningful role to play past keeping Miss Spears herself out of the madhouse. But here, on a stage that made Britney the #1 jack-off fantasy of perverts the whole over, came a stomach-churning, carnivalesque inversion of the tropes of titillation that brought her to the dance in the first. And we watched, rapt as we were aghast, hooting for more as loudly as we cried out for a merciful end, inherently blameless as we were deeply implicated. The strip-bar video for “Gimme More” was hardly even necessary; on the VMAs, Britney turned into a cootch show without the blow-off. And, madly, it probably actually helped her career. A tipping-point for pop culture? Maybe… but I doubt it…
Josh Ritter
No other artist dominated my iPod, my last.fm, or my internal jukebox in this calendar year the way Ritter did. Even more than last year, The Animal Years was playing constantly at Rblog HQ, to be displaced only by its excellent and refreshingly divergent follow-up Historical Conquests upon its August release. His solo acoustic set at the Power Plant was easily the best concert of the year (to give away the impending list of those somewhat), a sublime, transcendent evening, and some of my best music-related conversations of the year have involved Josh Ritter in one way or another. But more than any specific benchmark, any traditionally-defined buzz-building moment, Ritter made my year for the way his songs (and particularly his uniformly astounding lyrics) permeated my life with such osmotic persistence. His work is now so potently associated with such a range of people, places, moments, and feelings in the remarkable year that has passed that I don’t think I’ll ever shake them. This is, ideally, what all good music ought to do, but Ritter’s has done it to me so much, it feels particularly important to mention it. This won’t be the last you hear of him in these lists, therefore…
Bruce Springsteen plays with the Arcade Fire (or vice versa)
It was only a couple of songs in an arena in Ottawa in late October. But Win Butler and Regine Chassagne’s appearance in the Boss’ encore felt like far more than that. If anything, it solidified the Arcade Fire as the universally-adored band of the moment in a way that the relatively divisive Neon Bible didn’t quite do, while providing the music world with its 1,573,893rd reminder that Springsteen fucking rules the earth. And if there was any doubt that “Keep The Car Running” wasn’t already a modern classic, the E Street Band playing the damn thing dispelled it permanently…
The White Stripes tour Canada… all of it
Icky Thump wasn’t exactly greeted with the blaring fanfare of heavenly trumpets, but the group’s canny marketing strategy of touring Canada extensively (dates in Glace Bay and Inuvik bring new horizons to that term) took up the mantle of an Event Tour in a way that not even the Police’s terse cash-grab jaunt across the continent managed to do. And they didn’t just play shows and get the heck out, either; they busked on Winnipeg buses and shot videos on rocky Labrador shores. In short, they made the tour into something unique and special, worthy of the hyped-up press it got, and not just a series of dates to inject their record sale numbers with HGH (though it was doubtedlessly that as well). And that, I feel, is something to be applauded, or at least noted…
Starbucks’ Hear Music
For years, “coffeehouse music” has been a virulent epithet for a certain strain of middle-ground acoustic pop that seems blandly purpose-built to flutter in the air as you casually sip your quad venti half-caf two pump vanilla soy extra dry cappuccino and discuss the latest Jane Austen adaptation with your best girlfriend. So when coffee giant Starbucks launched their Hear Music label this March, visions of endlessly-multiplying earnest, smiling female pop-folk troubadours with the gilded Starbucks blessing danced willy-nilly through the heads of millions. But Hear has managed something more interesting than merely reissuing ten-year-old Alanis Morissette albums with the edges beveled down (although it has managed that as well, certainly). It stole Paul McCartney from the already-reeling EMI, and even if Memory Almost Full wasn’t exactly the best of his recent body of work, it was a lively album with genuine artistic chops; real organic beans, not synthetic ones. And that was before they convinced Joni Mitchell to make another album, not to mention actually convincing people to buy the ruddy thing. If Hear Music can provide a respectable outlet to sell the contemporary output of the faded icons of the 60s generation without the inherent condescension doled out by the youth-oriented major labels, then maybe it’s not all that bad after all. I swear they put addictive chemicals in their coffee, though…
Avril Lavigne’s plagiarism flap
Whether or not Mrs. Whibley’s “Girlfriend” was an innocuous rip-off of an innocuous old Rubinoos hit, one thing is for sure, and was driven home forcefully by the plagiarism suit leveled against her: man, is it ever innocuous. But it was also the sort of symbolic moment that galvanizes the true nature of a pop idol, that strips away the onion-like layers of airbrushed faux-integrity and leaves a shivering, naked bulb with little personality and less creativity. It’s almost analogous to Milli Vanilli being caught lip-synching in concert, only much less shocking. The culture that spawned and continues to reify Avril does so with a sense of utter shamelessness as to whether or not the unwashed masses truly believe she writes her own songs or not; as long as the records are selling, they could give a fuck. Maybe such dubious claims mattered in 2002, but now it’s a much more operative concern whether she keeps her hair blond or not. Maybe fluffy entertainment-journalism will continue to pimp her credentials, but the plagiarism kafuffle has railroaded her into the pop-princess role that she initially blew a raspberry at and which she will never fit into as snugly as any number of her competitors. But has it hurt her career? Even asking that question at all makes me feel inescapably naive…
Partying like it’s 1997
Agree or not, if you will or won’t, but my feeling is that 2007 was the year that the already-dubious 80s nostalgia-revival finally blazed out (bombastic blockbuster films about robots in disguise aside) and from its ashes arose… a dubious 90s nostalgia-revival. Audioslave (already sort of a masked 90s revival band) broke up, only to be replaced by… a Rage Against the Machine reunion and a Chris Cornell solo album. The Spice Girls reunited, better than new (thanks to plastic surgery), releasing a Greatest Hits and announcing a world tour. Billy Corgan revivified the Smashing Pumpkins in name and muscular late-period arena-rock sound at least, and even Radiohead was firmly, unimpeachably cool again. All we really need is Third Eye Blind to be popular again and Lou Bega to cobble together “Mambo #55″, and the past shall truly be the present. The pattern tends to be closer to fifteen years before culture gains a Second-Coming cachet, but maybe in the iPod age, timetables need to be shifted up slightly…
Mid-July Rockaganza
Read all about it here. In short, the Tragically Hip, Rush, and Sloan twice in the space of a week. Not to mention Weird Al a few days later and more friendly music nerding-out than I can properly reconstruct without subpoena power. Generally speaking, it was a wicked time and greatly reinforced the appeal of musical tourism. Who needs resorts when you’ve got the Pengrowth Saddledome, eh?
Amy Winehouse still being alive
Sometimes, it’s the little things that get you through. This is the first time I’ve mentioned her here and will likely be the last… but I suppose I’m glad she’s out there. Taking it easy for all us sinners, you know…
The year’s top singles are up next for me, and Ruhee has some contributions on the way as well…
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11.22.07
Posted in Concert reviews at 10:09 pm by Ross
Why, pray tell, is the music-fan lizard-brain predisposed to cleave multiple-songwriter acts into their constituent parts? Although we eventually digress and agree that the dynamic interactions of creative voices is indeed the appeal of such acts, there’s always the inevitable split. Are you a Lennon Person, or a McCartney Person? More dedicated to Steve Page or to Ed Robertson, to Martin Tielli or to Dave Bidini? Which member of Sloan is the dreamiest?
These are perhaps bad examples, but the question lingers. Is it a political irruption of the sort that focuses the spectrum of choice to left and right, a microcosm of the North American disdain for compromise and its edification of stiff-lipped polarity? Does this explain why Gomez couldn’t break big out here (although not if Grey’s Anatomy has anything to say about it)? And yet certain bands escape this quicksand pit: does anyone, when talking about Fleetwood Mac, debate the relative merits of Buckingham vs. Nicks vs. McVie? Not really. Sometimes, collaboration gets a free pass…
With this as a given, it’s perhaps no surprise that before Stars took the EEC stage to the heart-murmur strains of “The Beginning After The End” (which is a soft-rock retooling of Massive Attack’s “Teardrop”, I maintain), the last song played on the house speakers was Fleetwood Mac’s “Gypsy”.
Stars are, for all intents and purposes and despite occasional pretensions otherwise, essentially the Fleetwood Mac of Canadian indie-rock. Their music is superficially AOR but weirdly, defiantly poetic; it tackles the tragic vagaries and fleeting upswells of romance, but comes at them from odd angles. From two rather distinct ones, in fact: Torquil Campbell’s fawning, hyper-romantic microcosmic dramas, and Amy Millan’s dreamy, recumbent pop-psychological lovescapes. You can have your pick of the former or the latter (and I most certainly find myself more drawn to the latter), but it’s the interplay and (often) the friction between the two that gives Stars their largely-irresistible charm…
It should be stated, further, that the fact that Stars is a pretty damned hot live band also contributes to the charm coffers. Backed by some fairly outstanding musicians (Evan Cranley’s mercurial basslines are of particular note), Millan and Campbell offer dueling, complimentary personas. Campbell is a hunched, stalking presence that erupts consistently into mugging over-expressiveness, apt in explosive releases during such numbers as opener “Take Me To The Riot”, but sometimes slipping into laughably eager earnestness in the coda of “Set Yourself On Fire”, or into the donning of a goofy light-suit for the goofy light-disco of “The Ghost of Genova Heights”. It is hard to deny that he’s entertaining, mind you; he’s a wanker of the highest order, but he’s a wanker you can get behind…
Millan, for her part, tips teeter-totter-esque from a stillness that is either haunting or tedious (depending on who you ask and how much they’ve had to drink when you ask them) to an energetic, celebratory rock-star high, pogoing as she strummed at her axe, leaning way back to wail out choruses on “Midnight Coward” or early highlight “One More Night”, and encouraging crowd involvement in between tunes, starting a wave in the outsized EEC room and responding to a shouted audience complaint about the weather by demanding a shared declaration of “I LOVE COLD!”…
But whatever the differences on display, and wherever Stars diverged and converged throughout the evening, things came rather magnificently together at the end of the main set, with the triple-punch combo of “Your Ex-Lover Is Dead”, “Ageless Beauty” (which can’t help but fall slightly short of its pristine recorded version), and the title track from In Our Bedroom After The War; sing-alongs all, the final of which featured the reappearance of some members of the otherwise largely-unremarkable opening act Miracle Fortress to lend their pipes to the Stars equivalent of “All You Need is Love”. After this cathartic climax, the middling encore (featuring that nadir of the Stars catalogue, the inane “The Night Starts Here”) was deeply underwhelming, although “Calendar Girl” staved off the possibility of the night ending with a whimper, at least. There’s likely a sexual analogy or two concealed in that description, but I’m too pooped to suss it out…
Anyway, last night’s show is likely to find a spot on Rossblog’s concerts of the year, which shall be part and parcel of the inevitable series of year-in-review posts and lists that shall commence in short order. 2007 has nearly passed us by, after all…
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11.17.07
Posted in Concert reviews at 6:42 pm by Ross
When the dedicated seekers of our sonic underground build up Canada’s indie music scene as exciting, deep and wide-ranging, they often do so without considering the grim meat-hook realities that lie in wait for those that take them seriously. The encouragement and edification of Canada’s indie-rock “scene” (if a country of almost 10 million square kilometres can be a “scene” at all) is deserved, generally speaking, but beneath the regal sarongs of the blessed, the damned may well lurk, sustaining their emaciated forms on the discarded table scraps of glory. Parasites of triumph. Leeches of the sublime. Artistic carpetbaggers of the highest register.
One such band I saw last night: Montreal’s Land of Talk. Perhaps to pick on them would be unfair and hyperbolic, since they weren’t so much bad as thoroughly unmentionable. And their bass player was okay, even. But does being from Montreal really carry so much clout in the indie-record-label world that you can get a deal even with a yawning drummer who lapsed into predictable dance-rock hi-hat work at the two-minute mark of every non-memorable song? Or an awkward and uninspired female vocalist who beats on her guitar like it owes her money? Have we reached that circumspect level, truly?
Fortunately, Oshawa’s faux-country gentlemen Cuff the Duke were at least on hand to deploy their dorkily raucous brand of full-bodied, tongue-in-cheek country-power-pop to the best of their plaid-shirted ability. Though I don’t doubt the genuineness of their interest in the rural grassroots, the Duke are basically a guitar-pop band who are infinitely better when the country influence is employed as a grace note to their nimble, muscular sound. Perfectly capable musicians and entertainers with pretty tightly-coiled and formidable little rockers to call upon at will, Cuff the Duke are the sort of indie band that Canada does produce in droves, and yet never really have had any sort of major national breakthrough. It was a smallish crowd at the Dinwoodie, which felt more cavernous than usual as a result. But the reaction to something like “Take My Money and Run” belied an enthusiastic fan following, at least…
One pretty good band and one fairly anonymous band isn’t such a disappointing score for a Friday night in E-town in November, anyway. We’ll see if there’s an improvement this upcoming Wednesday, when Stars plays the EEC at West Ed Mall. I’ll be there to witness it, either way…
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11.09.07
Posted in Album reviews at 10:44 pm by Ross
One of my continual regrets as a music blogger is my relative lack of involvement in and coverage of Edmonton’s diverse and vibrant local music scene. My interests and focus tend to be wider, sure enough; when I buy albums, they’re rarely by Edmonton acts, and the shows I tend to go to feature out-of-town touring artists only occasionally support by locals. And perhaps Edmonton’s smaller scene is less self-perpetuating and not as necessary to immerse oneself in, as is the case in larger musical communities like those in Toronto, Vancouver, or Montreal. But sometimes, it feels like Rossblog has less of an identity as a voice on music because it rarely engages with what’s going on in this city as it should…
Which, perhaps, is why I am so eager and willing to praise the debut from Edmontonian roots-rockers the Wheat Pool, a band I’ve been aware of since they squeezed onto the cramped front-room stage at O’Byrne’s Irish Pub on Whyte Avenue. Township is an extremely assured initial effort from the band, fronted by singing/songwriting brothers Robb and Mike Angus, who evoke a warm, worn, weary tone worthy of Blue Rodeo (a major influence, certainly, but one they overcome with aplomb). These songs should feel more generic and conventional than they do, by all rights, but time after time they swell with such raw earnestness and selfless passion that by their inevitable climaxes, they add up to infinitely more than the sum of their influences…
It certainly helps the cause that the Angus’ lyrics are spotted with CanCon like mallards on the surface of a slough. Rousing opener “Geographic Centre of Canada” traces the lines of lonesome highways with trembling fingers, from the simultaneously cliched and kickass count-in to the references to High River, the Black Dog, and snowy days in June that only a Northern Albertan could fully appreciate. Elsewhere, “Evergreen” and “Whyte Avenue” mourn the departure of nameless loved ones to greener cultural pastures eastward, the latter wrenchingly recalling the 2003 Whyte Avenue fire and recasting it as a metaphor for the tragedy of separation from home (”The cold embrace of Whyte Avenue / this city ain’t the same without you”)…
This dyed-in-the-wool Edmontonian sighs knowingly, yes, but the Anguses are equal-opportunity Canadian-referencers, wondering in “Emily Carr” where the titular painter is to capture the crestfallen “parade of broken hearts” on Granville Street in Vancouver, borrowing some coastal sadness from Saskatchewan’s superstar, Joni Mitchell (”A Trace of You”), and musing brilliantly, “Neil Young still remembers what it’s like to be eighteen”. There’s even a sympathetic and poetic sketch of the controversial Louis Riel (“Peniel, SK”) that is worthy of comparison to some of Sufjan Stevens’ fine folk-pop biography songs on Illinois. And lest it seem like the Wheat Pool can only be effective when tossing around place-names, Township’s closing statement is “Phone Book”, an elegantly-confused eulogy for wasted love that seeps blood like an open wound. It feels damn good to say it: Edmonton has a great album for you late this year, and it’s called Township…
The Wheat Pool, by the way, is playing the aforementioned O’Byrne’s on December 13th. I haven’t seen them for awhile, and after hearing this album, I’m definitely looking forward to checking them out again. Hope to see you there, and to see you back here again soon…
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11.06.07
Posted in Album reviews at 1:07 pm by Ross
At long last, I’ve gotten around to hearing Jens Lekman’s records, Oh You’re So Silent Jens and the fairly new Night Falls Over Kortedala, a developing oeuvre that promises to fire the loins of awkward indie-pop romantics on both sides of the Atlantic. Lekman is one of that new crop of artists whose vocal skill-set is essentially that of a bland adult-contemporary crooner, but whose lyrical and production choices veer him towards the indie spectrum. Indeed, it is those often brief, and sometimes extended, forays into singular quirkiness that make Jens Lekman worth listening to, or even worth taking seriously as anything more than a DIY Swedish Barry Manilow…
Lekman’s charm is most consistently on display on his full-length debut, Oh You’re So Silent Jens. His voice can verge on the syrupy (when it stays in tune, anyway), but he strokes it like his favourite cat on a lonely Sunday evening, particularly on the classily-sustained notes that form the hooks in “The Wrong Hands” and “Black Cab”. And yet, lest the listening become a mite too easy, he’s comfortable with letting knuckleballs fly now and then, like a line about not being able to “dance the funky chicken” in the otherwise spotless Sufjanesque piano ballad “Sky Phenomenon”, and can let loose with a party-atmosphere track like “A Sweet Summer’s Night On Hammer Hill”, with its infectious handclaps (is there any other kind, really?), heartbeat onomatopoeia, and boulevard-promenade trumpet line. It’s an assured and surprising debut, confounding generic expectations just enough to set it apart…
Based on this, one might expect its follow-up, Night Falls Over Kortedala, to confound in similarly diverting ways. And though Lekman, admirably, presses at his stylistic boundaries, it’s overall to the detriment of his art. Kortedala is a soaring, gaudy monument to excessive overproduction, awash with lavish cheesecore strings and lush like a pyramid of scented soap in a specialty boutique: it sure smells great, but it leaves suds in your mouth. When Lekman does revert to his (now merely momentary) trademarked quirk, it’s almost unintelligible, buried as it is beneath an avalanche of saccharinity. And for the most part, Lekman barely tries to be particularly, well, particular, reverting to reheated romantic cliches on most of the songs, with perhaps the rare dash of paprika, yes, but rarely more than that. Occasionally, as on album-closer and first single “Friday Night at the Drive-In Bingo”, he’s able to make some deeper impression, but mostly the record floats along on corny clouds of sonic cotton-candy, hard to sink your teeth into and cavity-seeding when you finally do. The production is Lekman’s choice, certainly, his selected style, but that doesn’t mean it works, necessarily. And for my money, it doesn’t…
Check back later for more exciting… Rblog…
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11.02.07
Posted in Music news/reactions, Year-end lists at 4:23 pm by Ross
Matthew at I (heart) Music has tabulated the results, and the Hottest Canadian Bands of 2007 list can now be seen by all. I choose to view the top spot on the list as a dead heat just so Feist doesn’t beat out the Arcade Fire for anything (’cause we can’t have that), and because it sounds like that’s exactly what it was, a dead heat. Six of my own top ten acts managed to find their way onto the list, and those that didn’t weren’t really expected to, frankly. Some of Ruhee’s choices were likewise tapped, and our always-erudite comments litter the final 33 for your perusal and enjoyment. As voting parties, I suppose the expression of opinions on the top vote-getters should be strictly proscribed, and is maybe beside the point of the poll anyway. Instead, here are Ross’ and Ruhee’s top ten choices for Matt’s poll. Check ‘em out, compare to your own, etc…
Ross’ Picks
1. Joel Plaskett
The Nova Scotian Springsteen, only a hundred times more fun. At an age at which his generational contemporaries are floundering (have you heard a recent Sloan record?), Plaskett made his best music yet, the infectious and magical Ashtray Rock. And he’s one of CanRock’s foremost entertainers, as well. The total package, here.
2. The Arcade Fire
So Neon Bible isn’t as transcendent as Funeral. It’s still a magnificent piece of work, as is this treasure of a band. A #2 album in the States means more than any amount of dubious indie cred, especially when it is achieved without videos or anything else resembling mainstream promotion. The Arcade Fire make soulful, inspired music and they do it on their own terms. Aren’t we supposed to be encouraging that kind of thing?
3. Bedouin Soundclash
Some find them generic, but how can you really be generic when you’re drawing from approximately six genres in the space of a single song? I find them to be one of this country’s most uncomplicatedly joyful pop bands, and they deserve ample credit for escaping the one-hit wonder tag that they seemed destined for.
4. Cadence Weapon
Would have liked to hear some new music from Rollie this year, but the extremely amusing “Sharks” video is more than enough to get him on here. That and the local hero status, of course.
5. The New Pornographers
I still don’t believe Challengers quite stacks (crooked?) up to their previous work, although it has grown on me considerably. But this is still generally an interesting science experiment / band, and I never thought I’d hear myself say it, but… give Dan Bejar more songs on the next album. Please.
6. Stars
Slightly begrudgingly, since In Our Bedroom After The War frustrates me a little more often than it entertains me. But they’re successful and singular and usually diverting enough. I still find it hard to imagine the music fan who truly loves this band, but they’re good enough to make it on here.
7. Young Galaxy
Their debut is excellent and works even better live, and they’re not nearly as indistinguishably obscurantist as the Most Serene Republic. So… they get my vote.
8. Patrick Watson
Close to Paradise is a surprisingly rewarding album, and I think we can acknowledge that the Polaris has got to count for something. And you gotta love a beard, right?
9. Billy Talent
The Totally Uncool Pick, I am aware. But this band makes mass appeal rock music with energy, integrity, and a sneaking wit. I happen to love bands like that. So sue me. And Ian D’Sa’s hair! I think that counts for more than the Polaris Prize, really… it even looks like an awards statuette!
10. Spencer Krug
I’m not exactly a huge fan, and I sure wish Wolf Parade would make another damn album already, but it’s impossible to deny that this guy is accomplishing some pretty amazing things right now. Prolific doesn’t even begin to sum it up. I think he started two new bands while I was writing this.
Ruhee’s Picks
1. Joel Plaskett Emergency
It’s been a pretty great year for the Emergency: a Polaris Prize nomination, a wildly successful tour, and one of the best albums to come out of the Canadian independent scene in a long while. I’ve never met a Joel Plaskett song I didn’t like, nor do I foresee it happening anytime in the future - and I expect to hear a lot more out of him yet.
2. The New Pornographers
Challengers took a while to grow on me, but when it did, it REALLY grew. Definitely their most mature record to date, and their big tour with both Neko Case and Dan Bejar re-injected into the mix didn’t hurt either. It’s been a good year.
3. Rheostatics
I cried when this band broke up and I didn’t even get to see their farewell show - or any show, for that matter - I was rehearsing around the corner from Massey Hall and wondering why life had dealt me such a terrible fate. This band has definitely sailed off into the sunset, but for everything they have done, and everyone they have inspired (yes, I am giving them all the cheese I possess), I’m putting them high on my list. Rheos, you will be missed.
4. Rush
Inevitable. Snakes & Arrows is no 2112, but Rush have demonstrated that by damn, they are still alive and kicking, particularly with the addition of a second Toronto show after their first sold out in a hurry. I might be making an unpopular choice, but years later, this band is still absolutely excellent and has all the live energy you could ever ask for.
5. Brent Randall & His Pinecones
I cannot say enough about this band. A sort of mini-supergroup featuring members of Laura Peek & The Winning Hearts, City Field, Their Majesties and a myriad of other Halifax projects, the Pinecones are a quirky pop group who do wonderful things like covers of McCartney’s “Monkberry Moon Delight” in between whimsical songs with titles like “Television and Treasure” or “These Days, These Knights”. The world is anxiously awaiting their full-length album that will follow the delectable EP Quite Precisely (2003).
6. Rich Aucoin
Just the ambitious venture of writing an album that syncs up musically to the cartoon “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” is enough to make me want to include Aucoin on this list, but then there’s the added benefit of it being a really, really GOOD album. Think the Flaming Lips meets Sufjan Stevens with a dash of the Cartoon Network, and the cutest and most creative live staging I’ve seen in a long time.
7. Jetplanes of Abraham
Their album was released last year, but I can’t help wanting to put them on this list again. This year they’ve played with Rock Plaza Central and Do Make Say Think, and their live energy and sound are marvelous; I’m totally curious about where they’re headed in 2008.
8. Cuff the Duke
Riding on the heels of Sidelines in the City, Cuff the Duke are back on a roll. The aforementioned new LP is through-and-through that familiar, solid Cuff the Duke sound, and still as enjoyable as the last ones.
9. Justin Rutledge
When I first discovered Justin Rutledge, I only had one song of his and I just played it over and over and over again. It is impossible to get tired of him, and so he must be on my list; any artist that commands my attention for so long deserves serious recognition. He’s done tours with Blue Rodeo, NQ Arbuckle, and Luke Doucet, and by the looks of things he isn’t going to slow down anytime soon.
10. The Bicycles
If there was an award for Cutest Band in Canada, the Bicycles would win it every year. But what they also do remarkably well is short, sweet and snappy pop songs - the likes of which are sometimes scarce in the current experimental landscape. They are currently working on a new album, and if it’s anything like the last one, they might just be slapped with the sometimes-hated label of Next Big Thing. In any case, they are certainly worth listening for.
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10.30.07
Posted in Album reviews at 6:55 pm by Ross
Call it minimalism or call it laziness. Either way, here are some recently-acquired records… each reviewed in precisely 10 words!
Peter Bjorn & John - Writer’s Block - Starts strong, then annexed by twee. Peter Belle & Sebastian?
Neil Young - Chrome Dreams II - Electric boogaloo? Neil enjoys his rut, and so do I.
Okkervil River - The Stage Names - Closing track outdoes Beach Boys. This is notable. I dig.
Field Music - Tones of Town - A few flawless pop songs here. The British are strumming.
Fields - Everything Last Winter - Inherently dramatic but undeniably potent. Like Evanescence, only actually good.
Interpol - Our Love To Admire - Now I get it. They are a rock band. Neat.
Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space - Positively bottomless. No ceiling, either. Pure ether hymnals. Pass rag.
More blog soon. Life is busy. Keep reading. Rewards follow.
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10.21.07
Posted in Concert reviews at 11:28 am by Ross
This weekend was all about the rawk.
One had a distinct rising feeling from Friday to Saturday, witnessing the punkish triumph of the Thermals in the intimate Velvet Underground on the former and then returning to see Ted Leo tear the upstairs Starlite Room to the ground on the latter. I found myself requiring prescribed respites from enthusiastic head-nodding at many points, lest serious chiropractic issues were to result from an overabundance of said action. Rock and roll, it appears, can be a hazard to your health…
Portland-based Sub Poppers the Thermals kickstarted things on Friday, with a set of purer, more enervating punk rock than the emo-scarred mainstream landscape seems capable of churning out in these serious times. I am only really familiar with their most recent record, The Body, Th