Highly recommended this month: Ben Caplan, Majical Cloudz
Highly recommended, reviewed earlier: Geoff Berner
Worth your while: Evening Hymns, John Grant, Low, Michelle
McAdorey
These reviews ran in the Waterloo Record.
Bryan Adams – Get Up (Universal)
Bryan Adams is 56 years old. Is that too young to make Viagra
jokes when he puts out an album called Get
Up?
After a couple of albums recorded in hotel rooms while on tour,
and following a 30th anniversary re-release of Reckless, Get Up is
touted as a return to form for Adams, the album he should have made in 1990
before he got sidetracked into being a sappy (and phenomenally successful)
balladeer. Producer Jeff Lynne and co-writer Jim Vallance were enlisted. All
the songs are around three minutes long. What could go wrong?
Get Up is like watching your
old high school principal try and restart his old rock band with maximum
enthusiasm and minimal effort. Adams writes lyrics dripping in nostalgia, as if
to remind everyone that he used to wear leather jackets and torn blue jeans and
dammit, he’s still the same dude today. Only now Adams writes with way more
exclamation points. “If I’m going to go down, I’m gonna go down rockin’!” “We
did it all, and we’d do it all again in a heartbeat!” “That’s rock’n’roll! You
have to live it or you’ll never know!” “Get up! It’s a brand new day!” Thanks,
grandpa, but if this is rock’n’roll, I’d rather stay in bed.
Get down. (Oct. 29)
Download: “You Belong to Me,” “Don’t Even Try,” “Do What You
Gotta Do”
Blue Rodeo – Live at Massey Hall (Warner)
Thirty years together, 14 studio albums, and this marks Blue
Rodeo’s fourth live album, recorded in one of Canada’s most hallowed halls.
Why do we need this? Another live album should contain some surprises,
some reason to supplant 1999’s excellent Just
Like a Vacation. Instead, we have predictable versions of old
favourites—though thankfully not the obvious singles, with the exception of
three well-worn songs from 5 Days in May
and Bogulski’s chance to try and make “Diamond Mine” his own (an admirable
attempt, but it will always be impossible to reach the standard set by Bob
Wiseman). What’s another word for consistent? Rote. Inexplicably, there are five tracks from 2013’s In Our Nature—a record I totally forgot even existed—and who wants
to hear those? Granted, they’re from the album they were promoting on this
tour, but no one buys a live album that gives you time for obvious bathroom
breaks. There’s also no reason to ignore 2009’s The Things We Left Behind, their most critically successful album
of the last 20 years.
The only real revelation here is a resurrection of the
underrated 1997 track “Disappear,” from Tremolo,
which is given an extended piano solo. There are more than enough hidden gems
in Blue Rodeo’s catalogue that a new live album shouldn’t be a sleepwalk. (Oct. 29)
Download: “Disappear,” “Diamond Mine,” “Lost Together”
The Boxcar Boys – Cicada Ball (Independent)
Sometimes music in the hustle and bustle of Toronto all seems
like rock bands, pop singers and hip-hop artists. Then there’s a sextet like
the Boxcar Boys, led by clarinetist John David Williams (Lemon Bucket
Orchestra) and violinist Laura C. Bates (Del Bel, Fresh Snow), who play New
Orleans jazz, European folk music, North American country, and anything else that
sounds good with accordions, tubas, trombones and washboards. Williams is the
standout player here, but everyone else rises to his level and is accorded
equal space. Together, there’s a chemistry here that casual dabblers could
never replicate. (Oct. 1)
Download: “Scrammy Jammy,” “Wah Dat Dah,” “The Busker”
Ben Caplan – Birds With Broken Wings (Warner)
A gregarious tenor who sings cabaret songs, country music and
fiery folk music from several traditions, the Hamilton-born Caplan is a carny
barker whose ringmaster—Montreal’s klezmer hip-hop maestro Socalled—conducts
the violins, accordions, darboukas, cimbaloms and horns arranged by former
James Brown sideman Fred Wesley. Caplan usually hollers like he’s unamplified
under the big top; rarely does he feel like underplaying his material, which
includes plenty of fantastic songs that—here on his second album, and first
with wide distribution—are bound to turn heads even without Caplan and the
potential cacophony that surrounds him.
This album could well have been a well-intentioned mess. It’s a
credit to Socalled that it sounds as cohesive and powerful as it does; you feel
like you’re eavesdropping on the most magical gathering of old-world freaks in
the basement of a 400-year-old tavern. And then, just to throw you a curveball,
right near the end Caplan gives us an uncharacteristically straight-up,
strings-laden jazz song, “Night Like Tonight,” that he could probably sell to
Michael Bublé—and then follows it with a Halloweenie cover of Daniel Johnston’s
“Devil Town.” (Oct. 1)
Download: “Bird With Broken Wings,” “Ride On,” “Under Control”
Jesse Cook – One World (eOne)
Yes, listening to the new Jesse Cook album feels like being on
hold on a helpline. In this case, however, I feel slightly more confident that
my call is, in fact, somewhat important. It’s that good.
I’ll admit I have never followed Cook’s career. Maybe it was the
hair. Maybe because it seemed like it was soundtracking a soft porn film late
at night on Bravo. Maybe I’m an insufferable snob (wait—don’t answer that). But
it’s impossible to deny the guy’s technical skill, nor—now that I’m listening
closely for the first time—the soulfulness in his playing. Nine albums in, he’s
clearly doing something right—and I’m a dick.
He’s capable of flamenco fireworks, but he’s a judicious
player—and a generous one, considering how much time he shares here with
violinist Chris Church. Here (I’m told) there are more electronics and loops
than before, as well as Turkish and Brazilian and Cuban percussion; the synth
bass, programmed by Cook, is rich and resonant. Maybe Cook’s entire discography
is up to this standard. Or maybe this is the one to get. Or maybe it’s just
me. (Oct. 22)
Download: “Shake,” “Taxi Brazil,” “Tommy and Me”
Emilie & Ogden – 10,000 (Secret City)
Montrealer Emilie Kahn plays a harp—yes, the 38-stringed
classical instrument played by Joanna Newsom and, um, nobody else. Nobody, that
is, except Sarah Pagé of the Barr Brothers, who appeared at Kahn’s high school
as an accompanist to the choir. Young Kahn was hooked, and a few years later,
we have her debut album as a singer-songwriter. The harp is, indeed, novelty
and a lovely touch. But would we care about these songs if she played piano or
acoustic guitar? Likely. Just like any arty singer-songwriter from her
hometown, Kahn lives in the shadow of Patrick Watson, and she waltzes her way
through these 11 tracks (several are, in fact, waltzes) with delicate aplomb.
Producer/guitarist Jesse McCormack and drummer Francis Ledoux are her
sympathetic backing band, anchors that ensure everything doesn’t drift away on
waves of twee. (Oct. 1)
Download: “Ten Thousand,” “Long Gone,” “What Happened”
Evening Hymns – Quiet Energies (Outside)
“All my life I’ve been running and trying to break free,” sings
Jonas Bonnetta on his new record as Evening Hymns. It sounds like it: this is
the kind of open-road, driving record one plays during a trip home for
Thanksgiving, where those old streets don’t feel the same, where some faces
have faded away, where you reckon with how much your past informs your present
and your future.
The last time we heard from this rural Ontario band (now located
somewhere between Kingston and Ottawa), Bonnetta was mourning the death of his
father. It was—well, a bit of a bummer (although widely acclaimed). Ghosts
still haunt this record, but Bonnetta is no longer hanging his head: his chin
is up, the guitars are plugged in, there’s a rollicking rhythm section behind
him (who sound like they’ve been listening to The War on Drugs), and The Wooden
Sky’s Gavin Gardiner, a fellow purveyor of Canadian Shield roots rock (a
lineage stretching back to Crash Vegas, Kathleen Edwards and others). Timber
Timbre’s Mika Posen contributes strings; former bassist Sylvie Smith returns to
sing harmony. The production by James Bunton (Ohbijou) is wide-screen and
wonderful, meaty and majestic. (Oct. 8)
Download: “If I Was a Portal,” “House of Mirrors,” “Oh Man
You’ll Walk Again and Again”
What kind of a man begins an album with the lyric, “I did not think I was
the one being addressed / by hemorrhoid commercials on the TV set”?
John Grant. Such a simple name, such a complex man. He’s a
48-year-old, ex-Coloradan gay man living in Iceland, making synth-pop songs
that are sardonic and sometimes sentimental, sometimes silly, and sung in an
arch baritone. It’s as if Stephin Merritt and Buck 65 decided to sit around and
listen to old Depeche Mode records before writing songs for Iggy Pop to sing.
Only better.
Grant lobs more zingers at you than an episode of 30 Rock. “You seem like someone they
should chemically castrate,” he croons. On a duet with Tracey Thorn (Everything
But the Girl), he rattles off a litany of supposedly sacred cows—ocelot babies,
Francis Bacon, harvest moons, Rachmaninoff, and… Rachel Dratch?!—before
declaring that “all these things are just disappointing compared to you.” And
in perhaps the oddest chorus of 2015, he sets the following phrase to a
beautiful melody: “Global warming encourages slack-jawed troglodytes to leave
their homes with guns and knives in search of refreshments and some homicide.”
No, really. It works. As does, for that matter, the bass clarinet solo on the
new wave folk song “Down Here.”
It could all easily add up to a novelty record, or outtakes from
Flight of the Conchords. But it’s not all witty one-liners. Grant himself
describes himself as “moodier and angrier” this time out. The two-part title
comes from the literal translations of the Icelandic phrase for midlife crisis,
and the Turkish word for nightmare. Like most middle-aged people, Grant is both
baffled and ticked off at modern mores and what passes for societal
interaction. He’s HIV positive. He doesn’t have time for people who have “a
black belt in BS,” as he sang on his last album, 2013’s excellent Pale Green Ghosts. He might be a funny
guy, but he’s also deadly sincere—and he sings like it, whether he’s emoting
over squiggly synths or string-laden piano ballads that sounds as big as Pink
Floyd, thanks to producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Spoon).
Sometimes a lot of John Grant is far too much, but a little John
Grant goes a long, long way. (Oct. 8)
Download: “Voodoo Doll,” “Global Warming,” “Disappointing”
Low – Ones and Sixes (Sub Pop)
“What part of me don’t you know?” ask Low on their 11th
album. Fair question. The trio anchored by husband-and-wife duo Alan Sparhawk
and Mimi Parker have played most of their cards by now: the ultra-sparse,
hushed and dead-slow early records, the explosive dynamics (and
ever-so-slightly snappier tempos) heard on 2005’s The Great Destroyer, the electronic textures of 2007’s Drums and Guns. Every shift has
maintained a focus on Sparkhawk and Parker’s eerie harmonies, rich guitar tones
and minimalist percussion. An all-star list of producers and engineers—Steve
Albini, Tchad Blake, Dave Fridmann, Jeff Tweedy—have helped their evolution
along the way.
Ones and Sixes, helmed by the band
themselves and Bon Iver’s engineer, doesn’t break any new mould. Does it have
to? It’s a fine Low album, not quite a late-career highlight as 2013’s The Invisible Way was. For a band with
such a history, it’s a worthy and easy entry point for newcomers. But if you’re
a Low fan with at least three of their records on your shelf, save your money
for a concert ticket. (Oct. 22)
Download: “No Comprende,” “What Part of Me,” “Lies”
Corb Lund – Things That Can’t Be Undone (New West)
Is Western Canada’s favourite songwriter entering his Blue Rodeo
years? Where he just falls into old formulas, makes interchangeable records and
switches producers to try and pretend he’s going for a new sound?
This is the eighth album for Corb Lund, following the 2014
victory lap Counterfeit Blues, which
featured his band of Hurtin’ Albertans re-recording some of his greatest hits
(and non-hits) live in Sun Studio in Memphis, for the benefit of new American
fans who are discovering him after Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley became
big champions, and NPR and the Washington
Post finally got on board.
Those Albertans are still a crackin’ live band, notably
guitarist Grant Siemens, who’s given plenty of room here. But Lund himself has
his own high songwriting standards to live up to—and he comes up a bit short.
It’s not entirely out of character: ever since 2003’s classic Five Dollar Bill, Lund usually follows
up his strongest work by coasting a bit—so this might have been expected after
2011’s extremely strong Cabin Fever.
Even when Lund is coasting, of course, he’s still better than
most. Which is why “Sadr City,” about a soldier serving in Iraq, is another one
of Lund’s fine character portraits, as is “S Lazy H,” about generations of
Alberta farmers (which Lund, a sixth-generation rancher, knows a few things
about). His playful side shows up on “Washed-Up Rock Star Factory Blues,” about
a has-been who suddenly has to show up for a real job: “Well I done a lot of
singing about stickin’ it to the man / today’s the day he’s going to stick it
right back, if he can.”
That’s unlikely to be a problem for Lund. (Oct. 22)
Download: “Sadr City,” “Run This Town,” “S Lazy H”
Majical Cloudz – Are You Alone? (Arts and Crafts)
“What’s the point of a sad, sad song?” asks Devon Welsh, the man
with the odd inclination to call his musical project Majical Cloudz. The point,
young man, is as old as the blues itself—and though Welsh’s music owes more to
Brian Eno and Blade Runner than it
does Robert Johnson or Howlin’ Wolf.
Yet Welsh’s incantations are as ghostly and haunting as any
blues, though his lyrics are very 21st-century confessional, a mix
of maudlin moroseness and emo earnestness, populated by “red wine and sleeping
pills … cheap sex and sad films.” Welsh is the kind of guy who thinks dying in
a car crash with your lover is romantic—and he’s the first guy since Morrissey
to make it seem remotely possible (“I want to kiss you in a car that’s crashing
/ and we will both die laughing / because there is nothing left to do”).
On paper, this could come across like the worst record of the
year. (The name doesn’t help.) But Welsh has a natural magnetism, a voice
strong enough to sell the material—which consistently conjures feelings of a 3
a.m. soul-baring session with some stranger with whom you just bonded at a bar.
The vocals are uncomfortably bare against a sparse sonic backdrop of droning
organs, swooshing synths and arrhythmic electronic beats. In his videos, Welsh
likes to stare directly into the camera for three straight minutes; his record
achieves the same effect aurally.
Just like Dan Hill, the honesty’s too much. Or is it? Maybe it’s
what you need when it feels like nobody else is speaking to you, nobody else
hears you, nobody else is willing to say something as painfully sincere as: “I
am your friend until the end of your life.” Nobody else except a guy who calls
himself Majical Cloudz. (Oct. 15)
Download: “Disappear,” “Are You Alone,” “Silver Car Crash”
Michelle McAdorey – Into Her Future (DWR)
Fans of Crash Vegas—a brilliant and oft-overlooked Toronto band
who released three classic albums between 1989 and 1995—might well have been
wondering what the future might hold for singer Michelle McAdorey. This is the
first new music from her in 10 years, following two very low-key and
experimental records in the early 2000s. Into
Her Future finds her teaming up once again with Blue Rodeo’s Greg
Keelor—with whom she founded Crash Vegas in 1988; he left when they became too
busy—and returning from her more experimental forays back toward the dusky,
psychedelic country ballads that comprised some of Crash Vegas’s most
compelling moments. This is a record as quiet as it is sleepy—in good ways—with
one or two exceptions. McAdorey and Keelor get as trippy as they wanna be. If
it wasn’t all so well-executed, you might think it was made over a lost weekend
on Keelor’s farm under a haze of smoke. She’s no longer a steely-eyed rocker,
but her voice is as riveting as ever. McAdorey has been dearly missed. (Oct. 29)
Download: “Into Her Future,” “Disappearing Things,” “Run Into Me”
Princess Century – Progress (Paper Bag)
Princess Century is a techno project for Austra drummer Maya
Postepski, who readily admits that Austra’s Katie Stelmanis takes her pick of
Postepski’s beats. Those must be the ones that work better as pop songs; as
Princess Century, Postepski lets loose with longer, trance-like tracks filled
with analog synth patches and shades of ’80s soundtracks. She told Vice magazine, “Princess Century is the
project where I take the most risks with because I don’t care; I’m not trying
to necessarily have a huge audience. It’s where I can indulge all of my f--ked
up ideas and sometimes they work.” In fact, they almost always work here in
this soundscape of decaying neon, even the hypnotic solo percussion pieces (she
studied music at the University of Toronto) that would work better in a mix
beside Moondog and Olatunji than Kraftwerk or Adult. Much of Progress sounds spontaneous and raw; you
can tell Postepski goes with a first-idea-best-idea approach, not unlike Dan
Snaith’s Daphni project. Isn’t it high time Cronenberg made another dystopian
sci-fi flick? If so, he’s found his composer. (Oct. 22)
Download: “Bros vs. UFOs,” “Tokyo Hands,” “Domestic”
Rah Rah – Vessels (Hidden Pony)
This Regina quintet has been together for seven years; this is
their fourth album; and yet the members are barely over 25 and write nostalgic
songs about the early 2000s, “before my band broke up” (when they were, what,
14?!). The language can be earnest and polite; is that a Prairies thing? “There
were some quiet years there / I courted a few girls.” Drake, it’s not. There’s
also a song about feeling sore after a night of tobogganing. Gotta admit: have
not heard that one before.
Rah Rah came of age during the last great explosion of Canadian
music, and you can hear them as direct descendants of the Weakerthans, Stars,
the New Pornographers and others: alternating male/female vocalists, a punk
energy driving power pop melodies, tempered with sincere romanticism. There
are, of course, plenty of bands like this across this country. Rah Rah, though,
have that extra spark, have better songs than most, and the personalities of
the singers shine through. The two women in the band, keyboardist Erin Passmore
and violinist Kristina Hedlund, play a greater role than before; their
harmonies are front and centre even when Marshall Burns takes the lead on half
the dozen songs here. Producer Gus Van Go—who already this year has been
responsible for incredible albums by Whitehorse and Terra Lightfoot—amplifies
the band’s strengths and makes it impossible for radio programmers to ignore
them.
(Oct. 8)
Download: “Be Your Man,” “Wolf Eyes,” “Love That Sticks”
Keith Richards – Crosseyed Heart (Universal)
As someone who wishes the Rolling Stones had retired 35 years
ago, as someone who enjoyed Richards’s autobiography but still refuses to find
stories of parenting while strung out on heroin amusing, as someone with next
to no time for side project by Baby Boomer icons—I’m shocked at how good this
record sounds to these ears.
Away from the need to pander to legacy or superstar producers or
a long-lost quest for relevance, Richards lets loose with whatever the hell he
wants: blues, country, reggae, dirty rock’n’roll—hell, even “Goodnight Irene.”
His vocals sound uncannily like Bob Dylan of recent years, but his guitar tone
is unmistakable—and it sounds better here than it probably has since his last
solo record, 23 long years ago.
Drummer and co-writer Steve Jordan’s production is fantastic:
live and raw with just the right doses of atmosphere and reverb. The duet with
Norah Jones, "Illusion," is an obvious highlight, but Richards surrounds himself
with such a wealth of talent here—veteran session players Waddy Wachtel, Ivan
Neville, Bernard Fowler, Spooner Oldham, the late Bobby Keys—that it would be
hard for him to go wrong.
For decades now, Richards usually gets unwarranted adulation
just for showing up and making it look effortless—but, as heard here, sometimes
that’s all he has to do. (Oct. 1)
Download: “Trouble,” “Suspicious,” “Illusion” (feat. Norah
Jones)
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