Best of 2000, 20 years later

My friend Aaron Brophy likes to revisit his year-end lists from at least a decade back, and alternately either boast about his amazing, timeless taste, or wonder what the heck he was thinking.

20 years ago I was hired by Philip Bast at the Kitchener-Waterloo Record to write a weekly CD review column. I did that until 2019, reviewing three to six albums a week.

In 2000, I was living in Guelph, working at Exclaim, writing for Eye Weekly, and working on a book called Have Not Been the Same. 

In 2020, I'm writing a book about events 20 years ago, so I've been living in a bit of a time warp.

Here’s the 10 albums I submitted to Eye Weekly’s year-end poll in 2000. Commentary is new.


1. Sarah Harmer – You Were Here (Cold Snap)
A classic record, to this day. I knew that the day I heard it, after buying a copy from her after a show at Ted’s Wrecking Yard on College Street, a copy that was a CD-R with a hand-drawn cover. I was a huge Weeping Tile fan and was thrilled that Harmer finally got her due. Is it the best album of 2000? It’s one of my favourite albums of all time, so there’s that. Will have a lot more to say about this in the book.


2. The Weakerthans – Left and Leaving (G7). O hell yes. I first saw this band a couple of months before this album came out, at Exclaim’s anniversary party, and these songs blew me away. So did songs from 1997’s Fallow, which everyone in the room but me seemed to know by heart. I bought a copy from Soundscapes before my own band played a show at… Ted’s Wrecking Yard. The year 2000 was very much about Ted’s Wrecking Yard for me. I wrote an essay about this album’s anniversary here.


3. Yo La Tengo – And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out (Matador). I listened to this album more in 2020 than I had since the year it came out. That had nothing to do with its anniversary, and everything to do with therapeutic listening during enforced isolation. 

4. Bettie Serveert – Private Suit (Parasol). I have a lot to say about this, one of the most underrated rock records of the last 30 years, and one I revisit annually. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person in the world who feels that way. Wrote about this here.


5. Sleater-Kinney – All Hands on the Bad One (Kill Rock Stars). This isn’t even among my top three favourite S-K records now, but it sure sounded great in 2000—in part because so much other rock music was terrible. “You’re No Rock’n’Roll Fun” still gives me chills. I have never seen this video!

6. PJ Harvey – Stories From the City, Stories From The Sea (Island). I had some kind of hipster hang-up at the time about whether this was the best PJ Harvey record to date or whether it was just the PJ Harvey record you were most likely to put on when other people come over for dinner. Does it matter? Still sounds amazing, top to bottom.


7. Neko Case – Furnace Room Lullaby; Carolyn Mark – Party Girl; The Corn Sisters – The Other Women (Mint). It’s amazing to me that these three albums came out the same year as New Pornographers’ Mass Romantic. I still know every lyric to each of these songs. In the political climate of 2020, I re-latched on to Neko’s “Mood to Burn Bridges.” Feeling disconnected, I found solace in “someone singing my life back to me” in “Guided by Wire.” For 20 years leading up to my midlife crisis, I’ve had a Corn Sisters lyric by Mark in my head: “Is it a groove? Or is it a rut?” In April, I watched an online hootenanny hosted in isolation by the incredibly social Carolyn Mark, during which she played Party Girl’s “Don’t Come Over, Baby.” It was perfect.


8. Crooked Fingers – s/t (Sonic Unyon). Much like Sleater-Kinney, this is nowhere near my favourite album by one of my favourite artists of all time. But again, like Yo La Tengo, this one sounded particularly good in 2020: “Crowned in Chrome,” “New Drink for the Old Drunk,” “Broken Man,” “Black Black Ocean,” “Under Sad Stars”—because it was just that kind of year.

9. Jess Klein – Draw Them Near (Slow River/Ryko). This is the one album on this list where I thought: really? I remember liking it, but I don’t remember loving it and I definitely haven’t listened to it in 20 years. But guess what? It’s pretty great. Really solid songs, great voice, great band. In the same vein as Harmer, but American. 2000 might have been the last year I listened to a lot of roots rock, which is why Klein would have fallen off my radar. She’s still active, and new stuff sounds pretty good.


10. The Gruesomes – Cave In (Tyrant). This might have been the first of my favourite bands from my high school years to reunite and not suck, and so the surprise element no doubt vaulted this onto my top 10. Listening to it now for likely the first time in 20 years, it is a great record, and probably even the Gruesomes’ best. The songs and performances are all killer (and there’s finally a studio version of “You Were Not Using Your Head”). I just don’t listen to garage rock anymore; I barely did in 2000, either. But if you do, and/or if you were ever a Gruesomes fan and have somehow never heard this, I highly recommend it.



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Other favourites I wrote about in my year-end column for the K-W Record:


Asian Dub Foundation – Community Music (London/Polygram). I’d totally forgot this band until two years ago when I wrote a book about the Tragically Hip—which is a weird connection, but I read an article where drummer Johnny Fay talks about rocking this record on the tour bus. It also came to mind when I dug the Melt Yourself Down record this year. In many ways this record sounds either of the moment or incredibly dated, depending on your POV. I still think it sounds great. I had no idea they were still active; they put out a new record this year, and haven’t changed a bit. If Rage Against the Machine can have a revival, this band sure as hell can—and should. It’s not like what they were singing about has improved one iota. 

 

 

Bjork – Selmasongs (Warner). I was in a deep Bjork period of my life. Does this oft-forgotten soundtrack to Dancer in the Dark hold up? Probably much better than the movie, I’m guessing. After hearing about the antagonistic working relationship she had with notorious sadist Lars Von Trier, I reconsidered all portrayals of extreme suffering on film (not the first or last time in my life Bjork changed my worldview). The production is a delightful blend of the digital clicks and cuts she’d soon dive into and the orchestration heard on much of Post. I often forget that in the same year Kid A came out, Thom Yorke duetted with both PJ Harvey and Bjork on their albums, both of which are better than Kid A.

Blue Rodeo – The Days in Between (Warner). I loved this band for about 10 years of my life (1987-97), but have followed only from a respectful distance since. This album was probably the last one I enjoyed—or listened to more than thrice—and revisiting now I can see why. Was this the last time Keelor and Cuddy brought their best work to the band instead of their solo records? Trina Shoemaker’s production brings just the right amount of atmospherics. It sounds great today. Still: best of 2020? This was a nostalgia vote for me.


Deltron 3030 – s/t (75 Ark). The sound of the future? Nope, but definitely the sound of 2000, when Dan the Automator seemed to be everywhere (Gorillaz, Primal Scream, Handsome Boy Modeling School). Del the Funky Homosapien has great flow as always, though I don’t know about this as a concept album: the main appeal for me, then and now, is the music. (And yet: I’ve never listened to the accompanying instrumental album.) Kid Koala features prominently. His own Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is not on this list; it baffled me at the time. Now it’s clear he was charting his own path. I don’t think I’ve listened to a new Dan the Automator record since 2001, though I had a soft spot for his 2006 Mike Patton collab Peeping Tom (which I haven’t listened to since).


DJ Serious – Dim Sum (Sound King). This was a Toronto DJ whose debut featured MCs Brass Munk, D-Sisive, Arcee, Asicks and Lil Jaz. This being Canada, with a woeful hip-hop infrastructure, it came out on the same label that put out rock bands Danko Jones and Bionic and promptly got lost. Musically, it’s on the same wavelength as California’s Quannum crew, a mix of ’80s electro funk and early ’90s jazz-influenced tracks. It was definitely out of step with the Choclair and Kardinal crowd, and is now out of print and unavailable to stream except on this YouTube rip. I’m sure I haven’t listened to this in 20 years; it totally holds up. DJ Serious released a follow-up, Cold Tea, in 2005; I’ve never heard it. His studio output has been silent since.


Steve Earle – Transcendental Blues (Artemis). I don’t think Steve Earle gets enough credit for his five-album run between 1995-2000: Train a Comin’, I Feel Alright, El Corazon, The Mountain and finally this one. It’s flawless. Dozens of killer songs in that run. Where’s the box set? It should be mentioned in the same breath as the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder, Prince, you name it. He’s released at least nine albums of original material since, but I’ve only paid sporadic attention—maybe because it’s hard to measure up to this, which still sounds fabulous, especially loud. “All of My Life”—what a goddam anthem. “Another Town” is the greatest song the Pogues never wrote (see also: “The Galway Girl”). There’s too many more here to list. I’m not sure Earle’s production skills have ever sounded better. No idea why this wasn’t in my top 10.


International Noise Conspiracy – Survival Sickness (Epitaph). I put “Smash It Up” on so many mix CDs for years, but did I ever like this whole record? None of these other songs sound remotely familiar—although the title track certainly hits home these days. Garage rock was not my thing; I was posing, craving a political rock band so much that I imagined this was this one for me. It wasn’t. Little did I know at the time that this band’s predecessor, Refused, would prove to be so influential on a lot of the aughts’ aggressive music. 

Jurassic 5 – Quality Control (Interscope). I saw this band open for Femi Kuti’s North American debut at the Roxy in New York City in 1999: one of the most unforgettable nights of music in my life. This band was maligned at the time, considered some kind of retro hip-hop Sha Na Na or some bullshit, at the time of Timbaland and Jay-Z, but I loved it. Still do: I’m a sucker for genuine interplay between MCs, which is all but unheard of in this day of one-off collabs. (Quick: try to name one modern rap act with more than two MCs and not named Migos.) Related: Cut Chemist put out a good record a couple of years ago that I only just discovered.


King Cobb Steelie – Mayday (Ryko). One of my favourite bands of the ’90s, for both musical and personal reasons. This was a final bid for glory on Rykodisc, with pop songs and guest vocalists (Michelle McAdorey, Tamara Williamson), before they resurfaced four years later with an indie instrumental album before fading away. Produced by Laika’s Guy Fixsen, Mayday sounds amazing—though definitely dated. There’s something textbook turn-of-the-millenium in the drum machine sounds here, as heard on the title track; it’s a post-triphop groove that was ubiquitous for a while with the KCRW crowd and then vanished. There’s an entirely unnecessary scratch solo (by DJ Serious! see above) on “Below the Stars”—remember when rock bands felt they needed turntable solos to be somehow relevant? “Home” is still a great single, with a synth bass squiggle that now reminds me of Charanjit Singh’s Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat. Weirder moments like “Fast Money Blessing” have aged very well. This is an album ripe for rediscovery—or at least half of it. This band’s discography would be served well by a collection of greatest non-hits. And there have been rumours of a reunion.


Paul Macleod – Close and Play (independent). This one hurts. Paul Macleod was one of the most brilliant performers and songwriters I’ve ever known; he was a staple in the Kitchener-Waterloo and Guelph area, where he was never short a weekly gig. He performed often with Danny Michel, collaborated with the Rheostatics, and joined the Skydiggers as a sideman (at a time when he was writing better songs than they were). He always seemed poised for great things, which never materialized—a common story for hometown heroes everywhere, but I truly believe Macleod was exceptional. This was his first of only three proper studio records that I’m aware of (2007’s Bright Eyes Fade came out on Busted Flat; I’ve never heard 2014’s Gauge). He made it with Hawksley Workman, and it’s full of the same energy Workman brought to his own material as well as early records by John Southworth, Serena Ryder and Tegan and Sara. The songs are perfect Beatle-y pop. Macleod was an amazing singer. But no one heard this record unless you bought it from Macleod at a show. That’s not as big a tragedy as the fact that the Macleod I knew is no longer with us. I only knew him as an acquaintance and have very fond memories; I didn’t know his demons, which eventually took hold of him, hurt someone else, and landed him in court shortly before he died by suicide in 2016. It’s an awful story. I wish I could listen to his music now without thinking about it. I can’t. Hopefully someone can.

Listen to “Cruelty.” I mean, holy shit, what a song. 

 

Or “Giants.” 




New Pornographers – Mass Romantic (Mint). Kind of shocked this didn’t make my top 10, though it was released in November so maybe hadn’t fully sunk in. I was definitely in love with “Letter From an Occupant,” because who wasn’t? I wrote about this anniversary here.

Outkast – Stankonia (BMG). 2000 might have been the last year I felt remotely connected to mainstream hip-hop. I do love Outkast because they’re genre-busters, game-changers and genuinely odd. I also can’t love Outkast because I’m too much of a white Toronto prude. But this album is bloated: way too long, populated by skits, and dragged down by tracks like “We Luv Deez Hoez.” And as much as “B.O.B.” still slams (musically), the chorus is downright gross: “bombs over Baghdad” is not a great metaphor in any context, least of all as a pre-9/11 sentiment for not finishing a fight or not following through on a challenge.

Radiohead – Kid A (EMI). I don’t know that I ever loved this album—but not for the reasons people hated it. I like it just fine. If anything, it wasn’t weird enough. The fact that it was remotely divisive speaks to the intense conservatism of the time. (I’m debating whether I even care enough to read Steven Hyden’s new book about it.) I probably put it on my list so that I wouldn’t seem out of touch. Total posturing on my part.

The Salteens – Short Term Memories (Endearing). This was when I still had great affection for peppy indie pop populated by handclaps, trumpets and bop-ba-da’s. Come to think of it, I was in a band not unlike this one at the time. This Vancouver band had really catchy songs, heavily influenced by Sloan, and a really strong rhythm section. This is a really good record, better than most of its peers other than the New Pornographers. Not one I’d listen to today, though given the chance I’d probably join a band like this in a heartbeat.


Amon Tobin – Supermodified (Ninja Tune). Pretty sure I was a complete poser when I put this on my year-end list. Some of it is great and totally holds up—sexy, even; some of it sounds like a dial-up connection.


Travis – The Man Who (Sony). Woof. Really? I’m glad working for Brave New Waves saved me from becoming a guy who likes Travis.



Records that should be on this list that I got into shortly afterwards:

Belle and Sebastian – Fold Your Hands…

Destroyer – Thief

Be Good Tanyas – Blue Horse

Gonzales – Uber Alles

White Stripes – De Stijl


And Royal City’s At Rush Hour the Cars, made by some good friends of mine, and which I might have left off the list for nepotistic reasons.

Albums I should have appreciated more at the time, relevant to current research:

Dears – End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story

Godspeed You Black Emperor – Lift Your Skinny Fists...

Peaches – The Teaches Of 

 
Album all my friends loved and I still don’t get: 

Blonde Redhead – Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons.

20 years of the Weakerthans' Left and Leaving

When people talk about Canadian rock music in the early 2000s, they talk about Montreal, where Arcade Fire and others turned international eyes and ears toward Canada en masse. Sometimes they talk about Toronto, with its various Broken Social Scene satellites and a lot more. They might even talk about Vancouver, where in 2000 the New Pornographers unknowingly launched the idea that the pseudo-socialist country in North America was full of indie rock “collectives” containing multiple songwriters and singers.

But the record that launched one of the most creatively fertile musical periods in Canada’s history didn’t come from Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver. It came from smack dab in the middle of the country, where the music industry dare not tread, where the hipsters dare not look: Winnipeg. The record is the Weakerthans' Left and Leaving.

In 2000, rock music was in the era of rap rock and fourth-generation grunge. Popular punk had become rote and largely juvenile. Garage rock was thriving, but fairly far underground. In the next two years, there would be a so-called “rock revival,” most of which was welcome escapist fantasy in a post-9/11 world. But in the final week of July 2000, a poetic punk band from Winnipeg struck different chords entirely, and released one of the greatest albums of the coming decade. 

“The Weakerthans”-- not a terribly inspiring name. It’s the Canadian insecurity complex incarnate. It’s a name chosen by a band in a Prairie province far removed from the corridors of power, in a country that plays inevitable second fiddle to the superpower to the south. It’s a band whose lyrics could, at an extremely superficial level, be heard as yet another adenoidal adolescent pining for the girl to whom he’s pushing a political pamphlet.

But rarely had the broken sounded so bold. Rarely had the weak sounded so strong. Sure, the characters who populate the Weakerthans’ 2000 album Left and Leaving are, in their own words, defeated, exiled, heartbroken, poor and lonely. In the hands of a lesser writer, they might be either obviously autobiographical, or empty abstracts: anonymous huddled masses. In the pen of singer/songwriter John K. Samson, though, those lives are rich and full, brought to life with Dostoevskian detail, their circumstances universal. That portraiture extends to the music behind him as well: rousing punk anthems with chunky guitars countered by tender ballads that made the band folk festival favourites, all coloured by unusually interesting percussive patterns that contributed colour to the sonic palette rather than simply backing rhythms.

This was not another shitty emo band. These were not mall punks on the Warped Tour. This wasn’t screaming for your attention. This wasn’t even Fugazi or Bad Religion. This was something that could only have come from Winnipeg, Manitoba. 

Winnipeg’s socialist tradition is taught in classrooms across the country, in the story of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike. It’s not remotely surprising that the Weakerthans took their name, in part, from a line in “Solidarity Forever”: “What force on earth is weaker than the feeble force of one?” (Though I’m entirely unclear why this would inspire anyone to name their band the Weakerthans.) Samson’s inspirations include Billy Bragg; Bragg in turn was inspired by bands like the Clash. Bragg eschewed the idea of being backed by a punk band, and opted to play solo electric guitar instead. Samson wanted to be both Bragg and Strummer; the Weakerthans are what it would sound like if Bragg was actually backed by the Clash, alternating ferocity and fragility, with political sloganeering backbenched in order to examine ennui and daily compromises.

The Weakerthans had debuted in 1997 with Fallow, which was received mostly by fans of the band Samson had just left: Propagandhi. He was the third bassist to join the core members, who formed in Portage la Prairie and played their first show at Winnipeg’s Royal Albert, but he was with the band during their international breakthrough. That happened when they befriended Fat Mike of NOFX after sharing a bill at the Royal Albert. He put out the first two Propagandhi records; the second, 1995’s Less Talk More Rock, is considered a game-changer for the 90s generation of Warped Tour kids (not that Propagandhi played Warped), its provocative radical politics an anomaly in the scene. The album featured two Samson songs, “Gifts” and “Anchorless.” The latter was mere small-town malaise next to the rest of the material, written by a band that quoted Noam Chomsky, advocated veganism, and called out the misogynist, homophobic macho culture of punk. But because Propagandhi stood out so far from their peers, Samson had a lot of clout in punk circles. He reprised “Anchorless” on Fallow, which was released on Propagandhi’s then-new label, G7 Welcoming Committee. For much of the Weakerthans’ career in the U.S., Samson was forever referred to as the “ex-bass player in Propagandhi.” But much of Fallow--particularly the devastatingly beautiful ballad “None of the Above,” featuring a decidedly non-punk pedal steel guitar--proved that Samson was on a much different path. 

Left and Leaving came out July 25, 2000. The Weakerthans were on the cover of Exclaim magazine, a free national music monthly in Canada, but few other outlets were paying close attention, other than CBC’s nascent and niche Radio 3 service (to this day, host Grant Lawrence cites the Weakerthans as his favourite Canadian band ever). Within a year, however, mainstream artists like Gord Downie and Sarah Harmer were champions. A young Ontario band called the Constantines was taking careful notes as they prepared to record their debut album. The Weakerthans toured Canada with the non-punk likes of 90s vets Rheostatics and Lowest of the Low. The album landed on the radar of Stuart McLean’s Vinyl Cafe and was nominated for a Juno award. It was no longer the cherished secret of punks, poets, and people likely to buy anarchist books--people like Samson himself, who co-ran Arbeiter Ring Publishing. And it spread through word of mouth: this was an independent band raised on DIY methods and ethics, and existed outside corporate culture. If you heard the Weakerthans on the CBC or campus/community radio and wanted to buy Left and Leaving, you had to find a physical copy (or, uh, find it on Napster, which was just gaining steam). Once you found it, you cherished it for the rest of your life. 

Hyperbole alert, but hear me out: The first three songs on Left and Leaving are perhaps the greatest opening salvo in Canadian guitar rock music. 

“Everything Must Go” begins with a minor-key fanfare of sorts on electric guitar, four bars that give way to unaccompanied bass chords that underpin Samson’s voice singing about a garage sale to “pay my heart’s outstanding bills,” eventually offering a “complicated dream of dignity” in return. Jason Tait enters with a syncopated boom-bap beat on the brushes, with a sprinkling of sizzle cymbals, and later plays a vibraphone solo. The chorus boasts a soaring melody, in which Samson sings of a place "where awkward belongs," and how “recovery comes to the broken ones.” After it ends with a shower of cymbals and Tait’s snare run through distortion, it gives way to a four-count on an open hi-hat announcing the punk flurry of “Aside,” with its fire-alarm guitar riff. That song’s bristling musical confidence contrasts with lyrics about agoraphobia and “leaning on a broken fence / between past and present tense” (a line Gord Downie quoted on stage during the Tragically Hip's induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame). 

Both “Aside” and the third track, “Watermark,” feature Stephen Carroll’s nimble guitar work, injecting countermelodies and flourishes when not doubling up Samson’s rhythm guitar and John P. Sutton’s bass for extra chunk. Throughout, Ian Blurton’s production gives the guitars the glory they deserve, with clarity that never sacrifices the sense of volume. The entire record rings with the immediacy of a live performance, but with the attention to minute detail required of any great recording, like the way the bell of Tait’s ride cymbal is amplified anticipating the bridge in “Aside” before shifting to a triangle playing eighth-notes at a key moment of transition. (Hot tip, guitar bands: hire Ian Blurton to produce your record. He's available.)

Great band, great songs, great production: that describes a lot of beloved records. But the left turns in Left and Leaving always surprise. The whirly tube (corrugated plastic toy) solo in “Elegy for Elsabet.” The malletted toms accompanying beat poetry on “Without Mythologies.” The barroom piano and weeping violin on “Slips and Tangles.” The line about the mayor “killing kids” in the beautiful acoustic “My Favourite Chords,” which also features a musical saw. All these are interspersed with punk songs not particularly far removed from Propagandhi’s musical template, albeit at slightly less frenetic tempos. Each member of the band sees Samson’s lyrics and melodies as a black and white picture with which to imbue colour, no matter the tempo or style. 

No one outside Winnipeg would have considered the Weakerthans a so-called “supergroup” like the New Pornographers or Broken Social Scene, but their collective pedigree in their community went beyond the obvious Propagandhi connection: Tait’s skate-punk band Red Fisher was a popular Prairie favourite, and featured John Sutton in its later years, while Tait also played with Stephen Carroll’s Painted Thin, a band that once released a split CD with Samson’s first solo recordings. That these four men ended up pooling their strengths in Winnipeg’s greatest band at the time--in a fertile scene that also spawned Greg MacPherson, the Bonaduces, Sixty Stories, Novillero and more--seemed inevitable. 

Though there are no duds in their discography, the Weakerthans never sounded better than they did on Left and Leaving. The album’s lyrical tone anticipates the band’s trajectory: many of the songs are about a complicated relationship with one’s hometown; “This is a Fire Door Never Leave Open” presages Samson’s 2003 song “One Great City,” an equally empathetic and scathing municipal anti-anthem. (The Winnipeg Free Press this year named “One Great City” the best song ever written by Manitobans, tied with the Guess Who’s “American Woman.”) Left and Leaving documents a transitory time in one’s mid-20s when friends are leaving: to other towns, to other lives. 

The title track in particular, the album’s centrepiece, set to a descending chord pattern and a percussive brush pattern with a triplet skip at the end of each bar, registers deeply with any Canadian who doesn’t live in Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver. “My city’s still breathing, it’s true / through buildings gone missing like teeth,” sings Samson; writer Sheldon Birnie would later borrow the phrase Missing Like Teeth to title his book about 90s Winnipeg music. Samson, the eternal Winnipegger, is deeply committed to being a regional writer of universal truths, and there’s no better example than “Left and Leaving.” 

Shortly after the album came out, Tait and Sutton moved to Toronto; Sutton left the band after 2003’s Reconstruction Site, and was replaced by Torontonian Greg Smith. Auxiliary players from Winnipeg, Toronto and Ottawa floated in and out of the band. (Who's left and who's leaving?) Samson’s writing became more adult, less understood to be autobiographical, more of a short story writer, always with an abundance of empathy. His writing changed and evolved, but it didn’t get better--because it didn’t have to. He was fully formed at 27 years old, with an album that perhaps he could only have written at that age. The same age Joni Mitchell was when she wrote Blue.

Listening to Left and Leaving now, it’s not remotely dated. It’s a timeless rock record, musically and in its production. There are lyrical elements that speak particularly to the melancholy of youth, but are hardly exclusive to that time in one’s life. In “Fire Door,” Samson sings about one emotionally stunted character’s “forty years of failing to describe a feeling.”

Twenty years after Left and Leaving, the strength of the band called the Weakerthans’ is that they never failed at anything, least of all the ability to describe a feeling.

Bidiniband, John K. Samson

John K. Samson – Provincial (Anti)

Bidiniband – In the Rock Hall (Pheromone)

If Canadian rock had men of letters, Dave Bidini and John K. Samson would be two-thirds of a triumvirate alongside Gord Downie. Bidini, of course, is the author of 10 books about music and hockey (his latest, Writing Gordon Lightfoot, is one of his best), and for over 25 years he was a principal songwriter in the Rheostatics, arguably the most creative Canadian rock band of the ’90s. Samson is the barely prolific songwriter at the core of the Weakerthans, who with only four albums in the past 14 years became one of Canada’s most beloved bands, primarily on the strength of Samson’s prose (which he just collected into his first book, Lyrics and Poems 1997-2012).

Both men have always excelled at setting unlikely characters and situations inside compelling and moving songs. Until recently, they’ve always had help from sympathetic bandmates with whom they grew up, musicians who knew instinctively how to cast every quirky quote. Both men’s solo careers challenge them to think outside the box and make full use of new creative opportunities.

Granted, both had wide leeway before: Samson’s pop-punk bandmates have never stopped him from reciting poetry about retired NHL goalies over a detuned banjo and scraped percussion; the Rheostatics’ best and worst trait was that they were capable of and willing to try anything, making them the Canadian equivalent of equally influential and misunderstood American cult bands like the Minutemen and Camper Van Beethoven.

So what are these two bards up to now?

This is Bidiniband’s second album, so they have the upper hand. The debut, 2009’s The Land is Wild, seemed more like Bidini’s non-fiction writing hurriedly set to music—songs to be played at in-store appearances in between reading passages from his books. Here, his seasoned backing trio have been whipped into shape by regular gigging, to the point where they’re almost as sympathetic as the Rheostatics were to Bidini’s nuances. They obviously share his love of Devo, XTC, The Who and Max Webster, elements that were a small part of the Rheostatics’ avalanche of influences, but are brought to the fore here. And not in an imitative way, either; Bidiniband sounds most like, well Dave Bidini.

In fact, In the Rock Hall sounds far better than any record from the last 10 years of the Rheostatics’ discography, because this band knows how to push Bidini, and he’s more than willing to push back. There’s an explosive, though good-natured, musical tension at work here—largely the work of incredibly elastic guitarist Paul Linklater—watching these men throw endless curveballs at each other before uniting over three simple power chords and four-part harmony in a chorus (Bidini is singing better than he ever has). This is most evident on a recasting of the 1994 Rheos song “Earth,” which Bidiniband rescues from the bloated prog-rock mess of the original and transforms into a driving stadium-rock anthem. Mind you, Bidiniband has its own prog-rock mess in the form of “Eunioa,” a 10-minute adaptation of Christian Bök’s book of poetry that will really only appeal to anyone who understands what a “univocal lipogram” is.

There’s a nautical theme throughout—though there’s no reason for a native English speaker to write a song with the phrase “Big Men Go Fast on the Water” as a chorus (unless this originates as an odd translation of an Aboriginal name). Obvious novelty songs like “Popcorn” and “The Best Thing About the ’80s Was You” sound more like well-produced bar-band set-fillers than anything else—but hey, so do most of the Black Eyed Peas’ greatest hits, and (much to my chagrin) these earworms are just as catchy, if not more so, and not as dumb.

The performances—as well as the production from longtime partner in crime Michael Philip Wojewoda—outshine many of the actual songs, most of which are a baffling series of seemingly non-sequitur images and phrases. (There’s also a queer fondness for the word “tits.”) “I Wanna Go to Yemen,” Bidini sings—but why? “I’ve been waiting all this time to shine a light.” Is this a song about the Arab Spring? Doesn’t sound like it. And: “I want to see your face, eyeliner and burka” doesn’t make any sense when you realize that with a burka you don’t see any part of the face, never mind eyeliner. And why are there Burmese police shooting fishermen in a song also about a “two-bit Neil Young rip-off attack”? No matter: that latter track, “Last of the Dead Wrong Things,” is one of the most fantastic four minutes of visceral rock’n’roll Bidini has ever recorded. (Hear it here.)

And so Bidiniband’s literacy is not so much lyrical as it is musical; the real thrills here are listening to Linklater’s persistent fretboard wizardry, the throbbing, pummelling yet soulful grooves of the rhythm section of ex-Rheo Don Kerr and bassist Doug Friesen, and Bidini’s own underrated rhythm guitar skills. (Here’s your next bar argument: is there any essential rock’n’roll instrument more undervalued than rhythm guitarists? They don’t even get their own set of jokes.)

On John K. Samson’s solo album, his lyrics are the sole focus of attention; the accompanying music is mere background. He’s a prose writer first and foremost; every image and phrase is pondered over until it’s just perfect, yet there is no laboriousness heard in any single lyric. Though the ever-modest Samson will tell you that his vocal range and guitar skills are limited—hey, so is Leonard Cohen’s—he writes tiny perfect melodies and enlists trusted collaborators to fill in all the blanks.

Here, producer Paul Aucoin (Hylozoists, Cuff the Duke) casts Samson solo against just a horn section, in folk-country modes, as a piano balladeer, and—less successfully—in situations not unlike the Weakerthans. Those latter tracks are the only times when the otherwise impeccable Provincial manages to stumble. Even though the hired guns are no slouches (including Bidiniband bassist Doug Friesen and Constantines drummer Doug MacGregor), Samson already fronts an incredible rock band—anything else is going to sound second-rate. His solo work should stand further apart.

On the first single “When I Write My Master’s Thesis,” Samson steps into self-parody: any songwriter beloved by legions of English grad students is probably tempted to write a title like that all the time, but I’m not sure even Colin Meloy (Decemberists) would get away with that. Samson’s most successful narratives here are much better off set to delicately arranged downers like “The Last And,” “Stop Error,” or (a typical Samson title) “Letter in Icelandic from the Ninette San.”

As Samson sounds older (or, more accurately, his age), Bidini sounds more youthful; both promise their fans even bolder moves in the future.

Bidiniband's Toronto release show is this Saturday, January 28, at the Dakota Tavern in Toronto, 7 p.m. More dates are here.

John K. Samson was just in Toronto; Chromewaves wrote about it here. His North American tour begins on March 7 at the Grad Club in Kingston.

Polaris 2011 predictions, part two

Day two of Polaris prize predictions and alternate suggestions.

Braids – Native Speaker (Flemish Eye)

The album: The second debut on the list, this also acts its age. This Montreal-via-Calgary quartet are in love with sound: with synth textures, with the sound of their full-throated vocals, with the possibilities of pedals and studio tricks, with interlocking rhythms. They’re young enough—all in their early 20s—that one has to wonder if they’ve ever heard the Cocteau Twins, the Sugarcubes, or African records that may have influenced some of the guitar patterns here.

They may be youthful ingénues, or they might know exactly what they’re doing every step of the way. Who cares? The more mystery, the better, and this band is full of it. Braids sound like they all learned to play their instruments together as childhood friends in Calgary before moving east to Canada’s cultural mecca and commiserating with fellow freaks there. Unlike most bands with too many ideas, Braids know their breathing exercises and allow plenty of space for everything to float perfectly in place.

While they may sound like a breath of fresh air, however, they are undeniably, well, airy. As lovely as their ethereal approach may be, it rarely transcends the initial moment. Every time I think of Braids, I can never remember what they sound like. While listening to the album, I hear new things all the time. When it’s over, I forget all about it.

There’s something to be said for that tabula rasa experience of listening, and it’s either the best thing or the worst thing about Braids. I can’t decide. But I do know they’re going to make much better records than this one, especially after the relentless road trip they’ve been on since this album’s release in January.

The chances: Strong. Braids’ originality gives them an edge over everyone else on this list, which past Polaris behaviour has rewarded (Final Fantasy, Patrick Watson, Caribou, arguably Karkwa).

Destroyer – Kaputt (Merge)

The album: I was ready to give up on Destroyer completely until Dan Bejar made this record. That he managed to pull this off is nothing short of astounding. Is his embrace of ’80s smooth-jazz-inflected AOR ironic? That’s the immediate assumption with something this cheesy (this video didn’t help the discussion). But Bejar takes this way too seriously to be any kind of joke, as is evident in the incredibly precise attention to detail to every element of the soundscapes here.

The saxophone, synths and trumpet get most of the attention—I think they’re lovely and used tastefully and effectively, but more than a few would disagree with me—but the longer I listen to this album, the more I fall in love with the guitars: the finger-picked rhythm guitar that’s particular to ’80s pop, and the processed lead guitar that plays call-and-response with the vocals, popping up randomly and sometimes fading into the background in the middle of a phrase.

Destroyer—the band itself, not Bejar—has been getting increasingly textural on recent albums, most of the time completely overshadowing Bejar’s actual songs and vocals. That reaches full fruition here, and now, for the first time in years, Bejar doesn’t sound like he’s battling his own band. Everyone here is in the same boat. Specifically, the same cruise ship in the Caribbean. Sipping the same daiquiri.

Drawbacks: “Suicide Demo for Kara Walker” and “Song for America” are far too similar to each other, although each is lovely on its own. The 11-minute ambient techno of “Bay of Pigs” is likely a stumbling block for some, but it’s a gamble on Bejar’s part that works.

Everything else I have to say about this album is here.

The chances: Fair. Destroyer has always been divisive, to say the least. Few people hear a Destroyer album and say, “Yeah, I guess that’s okay”—although this, being his most approachable work, might win him some soft votes. But if he wins, it will be because he comes up the middle of an otherwise split vote (say, Arcade Fire vs. Braids), not because he convinced everyone in the room that this is the album of the year. More than a few people hate this album for its sonics alone, before they even get around to dealing with Bejar’s poetry.

Alternates:

Jim Bryson & the Weakerthans – The Falcon Lake Incident (Maple/Kelp)

The album: As much as I love this album, as much as I often reach for it over breakfast or before bed or as driving to the cottage or as I “watch the clouds collide and cover up the setting sun,” I have a lot of trouble writing about it. Some things just feel right; they shouldn’t require any explanation. They just are. But here goes.

Bryson writes deceptively simple songs with sparse arrangements, all the colour and shading employed extremely subtly, and his voice rarely rising above an intimate whisper even on his most upbeat songs (of which there aren’t many). He rarely strays from a CanRock template of 4/4 electric folk rock with chugging guitars, and yet he never sounds lazy. Likewise, the Weakerthans are a band that in many ways rely on little more than three chords and bare-bones punk/folk arrangements, and yet there are so many small treats in the tiny details of their recorded works that set them apart from almost anyone else attempting something similar, to say nothing of John K. Samson’s lyrics.

Bryson is not in Samson’s league as a lyricist—to be fair, extremely few people are—but they share a love of tiny observations that speak volumes about the characters and situations in the songs. And so Samson’s band are used to colouring his sketches musically in ways that the listener barely notices; they do the exact same thing for Bryson here, to great effect.

Why it didn’t make the shortlist (or the long list): As good as Jim Bryson is, it’s hard to come up with hyperbolic adjectives to describe his music (see above). And so if you haven’t already slowly fallen in love with the guy over a series of albums, it’s hard to rally the troops and wave the flag excitedly for one of his new records—even if he has an all-star backing band, as he obviously does here.

Kathryn Calder – Are You My Mother? (File Under: Music)

The album: This is the first solo record for Calder, who is a keyboardist and vocalist in the New Pornographers, and used to help front a trio called Immaculate Machine when she was barely out of high school.

This album was written while her mother was dying, and while that is a theme here, you’d never know it unless she’d advertised the fact. There’s nothing morbid about this at all. Calder is no slouch as a lyricist, but her wordless choruses speak volumes. On “Down the River,” she sings about saying “your goodnights and goodbyes” over a slow pulse of piano and cello, and eventually a gradual crescendo of snare drum, until at the 2.5-minute mark a huge chorus of la-la-la’s comes crashing in sounding like the most joyous, triumphant sendoff any mortal soul could hope for. I’m not sure that song is actually about death, but “Slip Away” certainly is, and features a similar structure that climaxes in a divine “ooo-ooo” chorus that’s one of the most anthemic hooks on the record.

Mother is melancholy at times, absolutely, but no more so than anyone else. For every mid-tempo moment, there’s a rousing rocker like “A Day Long Past Its Prime” or “Castor and Pollux”—or songs that do both, like the stunning “All It Is,” the kind of song U2 wishes it could still write (I mean that in the best possible way, as one of the few music critics I know who doesn’t loathe U2).

More than anything else, Calder has made a beautiful record: there’s her pitch-perfect choirgirl voice, of course, but the instrumentation is impeccable, imbued with a lush West Coast vibe that colours every guitar line, every touch of reverb, even the background ambiance of birdsong on “So Easily.”

When I first this record in August 2010, I thought it was pretty good, and better than I expected, and I wrote a lame review extolling one or two of its virtues and making obvious comparisons to her boss (and uncle) Carl Newman. But in the months that followed, various hooks from various songs kept reappearing in my head even if I hadn’t heard the album in weeks. Eventually, I started listening to it obsessively. I still am. You should too.

Why it didn’t make the shortlist (or the long list):

That this album mostly ignored, in Canada and everywhere else, is to me the single biggest crime of the music business in 2010. It came out last August, and so even had almost a year to register with critics and rally support. Alas, it did not.

Why? Who knows. Maybe people remember that her pre-New Pornographers project, Immaculate Machine, was an average band with uncommonly talented musicians whose best moments were few and far between. Maybe people don’t care about solo records by New Pornographers who aren’t Carl Newman, Dan Bejar or Neko Case (just ask Todd Fancey).

Calder’s new album is out this fall. I haven’t heard it yet. If it’s anywhere near as good as this one, I’m going to be talking about it incessantly until everyone actually listens to it and it wins next year’s Polaris.

Oct '10 reviews

The following reviews ran in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record and the Guelph Mercury last month.


Antony and the Johnsons – Swanlights (Secretly Canadian)

“Everything is new,” sings Antony in the opening moments of his new album. But is it? For all the heavenly powers of his voice, and a handful of heartbreaking songs to his credit, Antony Hegarty has been in the “most promising” category for far too long. With the innate talent he has, not to mention the number of legends and peers who line up to work with him, it’s shocking that none of his albums are as good as they can be.

Swanlights is no different; in fact, it shares a lot of melodic and stylistic similarities to songs on his breakthrough, 2005’s I Am A Bird Now, right down to the token Stax-style soul song (“Thank You For Your Love”) and a meditation on death (“The Spirit Was Gone”). Yet there are no knockouts here; much of Swanlights is content to let Antony’s voice do all the heavy lifting. And when Bjork shows up for a duet, it’s a really bad idea, two eccentric voices indulging in their eccentricities and never meeting in the middle; they should know this by now, from earlier misfires featured on her Volta album.

With a unique artist like Antony, the effect of a co-writer or a producer could dilute everything that makes him special—or it could be the best thing to ever happen to him. It’s worth the risk to find out. (Oct. 7)

Download: “Christina’s Farm,” “Swanlights,” “Thank You For Your Love”



Belle and Sebastian – Write About Love (Matador)

Belle and Sebastian’s most recent album—2005’s The Life Pursuit—was a coming-out party of sorts for the previously bashful and bookish band, who suddenly discovered muscles they didn’t even know they had, and made a bright, big pop album that was more than enough to satiate fans in the five years since.

Write About Love is equally confident and accomplished, but doesn’t feel like it has as much to prove. So even if the peppiest numbers here are unlikely to get all your local librarians to start shimmying—which was the case with almost every track on The Life Pursuit—there is still a boldness to even the ballads here (“Calculating Bimbo,” “Read the Blessed Pages”). Violinist Sarah Martin spends more time in the spotlight, either taking lead vocals or trading off with bandleader Stuart Murdoch; Norah Jones shows up for a sultry duet on “Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John.” The only weak link is guitarist Stevie Jackson; surely his sole song here—the drippy and peppy song “I’m Not Living in the Real World”—can’t be the best he’s penned in five years.

The only significant difference heard here in Belle and Sebastian’s formula is Murdoch writing more explicitly about his spirituality, specifically on “The Ghost of Rockschool.” But, as with everything in this band, he is as successful at being earnest as he is when he’s considerably more coy. (Oct. 21)

Download: “I Want the World to Stop,” “Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John,” “I Didn’t See It Coming”


Jim Bryson and the Weakerthans – The Falcon Lake Incident (MapleMusic)

Jim Bryson spent the last three years touring as a member of The Tragically Hip, Kathleen Edwards and the Weakerthans, and released a live album that was superior to any of his three studio efforts. Now, employing the Weakerthans as his backing band, the always reliable Ottawa songwriter continues his winning streak with his finest collection of songs to date, songs that share a sense of nuance and storytelling with the Weakerthans' poet-in-residence John K. Samson—albeit Bryson is no match for Samson’s peerless eye for poetic detail. Indeed, working alongside Samson—as a musician in his band, not as a co-writer—should be intimidating for any songwriter, but these two men have much in common, starting with their subtlety; the difference is that while neither are prone to grand statements or bland sentiment, Samson can casually drop a lyric that stops you in your tracks, and Bryson's songs sneak up on you slowly.

As a backing band, the Weakerthans don't try to adopt a hard-sell attitude to this set of songs; for all their strengths as players, what they do so effectively on their own albums is allow Samson the space to spin his narratives inside entirely conventional rock songs. So while their marquee status on Bryson's project will no doubt boost its profile, there's little about The Falcon Lake Incident that sounds much different than any other Jim Bryson album; being the all-around good guy of Canadian rock that he is, he's never had trouble attracting top talent to his studio records.

Come for the Weakerthans; stay for Jim Bryson. (Oct. 28)

Download: “Metal Girls,” “Up All Night,” “Raised All Wrong”


Coco et Co. – St. Denis (independent)

Two roommates in the long Montreal winter, writing sad love songs, but not to each other. Come springtime, they scour yard sales for cheap keyboards and start recording. Andrew J.P. Sisk sounds defeated but not down and out; Miranda Durka lurks in the background, largely resisting the urge to add female vocals and invite obvious comparisons to influences like The XX or Low (or, they claim, Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin); when she does, it’s that much more effective, and not at all imitative.

“You could be super if you wanted to,” Sisk sings over a disco beat on the cheapest drum machine imaginable, and there’s no doubt that these songs could truly shine with a bigger template. But they don’t want to, and nor should they. The intimacy heard here is what makes St. Denis so special, recalling the bedroom recordings of powerful sad-sack ’90s songwriter East River Pipe.

They’re not “fixed on the precious,” as they sing; these songs speak loud and clear on their own, especially “Radio”—which easily deserves a place on a list of the all-time great songs on that well-worn song topic: “You’ve been broadcasting/ and you’re wondering/ how it could be/ no one’s listening.” As the medium of radio disappears, and even the plethora of podcasts amounts to little more than white noise, the song is a lament for a lost form of communication. Hopefully someone’s listening—and why wouldn’t they be? Coco et Co. are giving away this entire album for free here. (Oct. 7 )


Diamond Rings – Special Affections (Secret City)

Over the course of the last year, there have been no less than four colourful and inventive videos that introduced Diamond Rings to an international audience much bigger than the project’s lo-fi bedroom beginnings would have indicated. Behind the ’80s fashion and synthesizers are John O’Regan’s songs, which boast the same melodic mastery and economy that he shows in his other band, the D’Urbervilles, whose 2008 debut, We Are the Hunters, is one of the most underrated Canadian rock records of the last decade.

And so now that the album is finally here, fans of O’Regan might be forgiven for having expected a bit more from Special Affections. Whereas the D’Urbervilles debuted with a mature, spacious and raw album that sounded like a band with much more experience, Diamond Rings still sounds like a work in progress. O’Regan is still figuring out how to make his limited tools—mostly cheap-sounding synths and drum machines—work to his advantage. On the other hand, it’s no worse than some of the early ’80s synth pop albums that obviously inspired him; but seeing how Janet Jackson and Kylie Minogue are also key influences, O’Regan’s not quite ready to make a big pop record.

None of this is a slight on the songs; Special Affections has 10 songs that are incredibly catchy, even at their moodiest (“Give It Up,” “Play By Heart”). O’Regan’s baritone lends a goth overtone to even the peppiest pop song, and it’s safe to say that no one else today is combining R&B, ’90s indie rock and ’80s synth pop as successfully as he is here. As good as Special Affections may be, it’s exciting to imagine where else O’Regan can go. (Oct. 28)

Download: “All Your Songs,” “On Our Own,” “Something Else”


The Drums –s/t (Universal)

Two song titles here pretty much sum everything up: “I Need Fun in My Life” and “It Will All End in Tears.” The Drums sound like they’re trying too hard to have fun—and failing. A friend and fan described them to me as a “happy Joy Division”—a contradiction in terms, but one that accurately describes the aesthetic and intent the Drums are working with. Yet there’s nothing joyous about this, despite their best efforts; the vocals are whiny, the lo-fi bedroom-band aesthetic gets weary fast, and the lyrics aim for Morrissey-style wit and come up flat. And when they actually do try and get serious on a ballad like “Down by the Water,” it’s barely listenable. Drop the Drums; go for Diamond Rings instead. (Oct. 28)

Download: “Best Friend,” “Let’s Go Surfing,” “I Need Fun in My Life”


Ben Folds & Nick Hornby – Lonely Avenue (Nonesuch)

That massive music geek and novelist Nick Hornby might eventually try his pen at writing lyrics seemed inevitable. That he would turn to Ben Folds also makes sense; the piano popsmith has a knack for turning uncomfortable subject matter into melodic rock songs and reflective ballads.

Unfortunately, Folds has been past his prime lately, and this album is no exception. Musically, the best thing about this album is the string arrangements by Paul Buckmaster, known for his work with David Bowie, Elton John and Leonard Cohen.

Lyrically, Hornby’s presence is barely felt, mostly because he either writes awkward prose that has no place in melodic pop or he sinks to a juvenile level that Folds seems all too happy to indulge (“Levi Johnston’s Blues”). Hornby sounds overly self-conscious, writing songs about songwriters both fictional and real (“Belinda,” “Doc Pomus”), poets (“Saskia Hamilton”) and Internet critics (“A Working Day”).

I don’t want to read a novel by Ben Folds; now I know I don’t want to hear Nick Hornby make an album. (Oct. 7 )

Download: “Your Dogs,” “Picture Window,” “Belinda”


Michael Franti & Spearhead – The Sound of Sunshine (EMI)

It’s hard to imagine a more apt title for an album that sounds out of place anywhere but on a beach “with the waves in motion and everything smelling like suntan lotion.”

Michael Franti may have built his reputation as a politically active songwriter, but—after bouncing back from a health scare—here’s he’s never anything less than a purveyor of positivity, whistling while he walks, and bathing in the beauty of the world. Franti has always been an inspiring figure, on stage and lyrically, but rarely has he ever sounded so completely blissed out as he does here, even while he recognizes that all is not well. “Today I’m just glad to be alive,” he sings on “Gloria,” an arm-waving anthem where he counts his blessings and his loved ones rather than surrender the tribulations of the troubled world outside.

Spearhead’s musical mandate continues to mine reggae, soul, and pop, but they’re slightly less successful as a rock band; “The Thing That Helps Me Get Through” sounds more than a bit like Lenny Kravitz, albeit on a good day. With recording done in Bali, Jamaica, San Francisco and in various hotel rooms, it’s no wonder the album sounds like it was made beside a beach—it probably was. (Oct. 14)


Download: “The Sound of the Sunshine,” “Hey Hey Hey,” “The Only Thing Missing Was You”


Olenka and the Autumn Lovers – And Now We Sing (independent)

If you’re born with a low, husky voice like that of Olenka Krakus, are you genetically predisposed to sing songs of the down and out, of motel dwellers and society’s forgotten? No matter, as Krakus would be a compelling figure no matter her subject matter, and there are few other female vocalists who sound anything like her, either in performance or her songwriting.

On her stunning 2008 debut album, Krakus drew from her Polish heritage to write gutsy eastern European melodies, and assembled a sympathetic band that brought their own influences to the table. Here, she abandons traditional approaches—though not the instrumentation—and takes some sidesteps into country music, but for the most part maintains her own idiosyncracies. For that reason, And Now We Sing sounds more like a transition album, whereas its predecessor was more cohesive and satisfying. Nonetheless, Olenka and the Autumn Lovers are still a unique presence, and not a band you should miss live. (Oct. 14)

Download: “East End,” “Motel Blues,” “Go”


Owen Pallett – A Swedish Love Story (For Great Justice)

Owen Pallett had literary ambitions on his triumphant 2010 album Heartland, the lyrics of which involved a meta-fictional construct. Whether Pallett succeeded or not is subject to much debate; some found the lyrics too distracting from the splendour of the music.

Perhaps as a reaction to Heartland’s glorious excess, A Swedish Love Story is a much simpler affair: four relatively straightforward pop songs. Or are they? “Scandal at the Parkade” references homophobic politicians in Jamaica and Uganda, and yet the chorus appears to be about cottages and repeats the phrase imploring someone to “button them down.” Musically, however this is the most consistently pop Pallett has ever been, still focused primarily around layers of his violin, but the bookending tracks on this four-song EP use a jaunty drum machine, while the songs in the middle balance strings and synths, delicacy and drama, pomp and pop. (Oct. 7)

Download: “Scandal At the Parkade,” “A Man With No Ankles,” “Don’t Stop”


PS I Love You – Meet Me at the Muster Station (Paper Bag)

Paul Saulnier is a man in love with sound—mostly the sound of his guitar, the sound of his guitar amp, and the sound of his guitar’s feedback. For all we know, he is also intricately obsessed with the sounds emanating from his guitar case and his guitar strap, perhaps even his guitar pick. He is a man in love with guitarists of all stripes: Jimi Hendrix, The Edge, the Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields.

It’s obvious he’d rather let his guitar do most of the talking; his double-tracked vocals are often buried in the mix, though it’s not hard to notice that he’s a howler and a scowler in the tradition of Frank Black, Lou Reed, and Spencer Krug (Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown). While the heavily layered Meet Me at the Muster Station certainly sounds excessive—the band is a duo, though you’d never guess that from this dense recording—Saulnier makes sure to dole it out in small doses; rare is the song here that breaks the three-minute mark. (Oct. 14)

Download: “Meet Me At the Muster Station,” “2012,” “Butterflies and Boners”


Sufjan Stevens – The Age of Adz (Asthmatic Kitty)

Sufjan Stevens has never suffered from lack of ambition. He became one of the biggest indie sensations of the last decade with accomplishments that include two albums about the state of Illinois and one about Michigan, electronic music—later adapted for string quartet—based on the Chinese zodiac, and a conceptual art project about the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

There is no overarching narrative to The Age of Adz—his first album of new vocal material since his 2005 breakthrough Illinois—other than that he has fallen in love. And a messy love at that: one full of heightened emotional drama, optimism, doubt, and the unpredictable fluttering of the heart. Stevens sets out to chart all of this with erratic electronics, flowery flourishes of woodwinds and brass, choral vocals, and lyrics that he admits are “futile devices.” Indeed they are: on the opening track, the love of his life appears to be someone on whose couch he sleeps after they’ve tucked him in, someone whose abilities to crochet he finds “mesmerizing.”

Perhaps not surprisingly then, Stevens’s extended love letter is remarkably devoid of passion. As the cascading flutes dance around big string sections and intrusive electronic percussion—while a choir sings “there’s too much riding on that”—this material sounds simultaneously like an intellectual exercise rather than an emotional statement, and a chaotic mess of various paint cans spilled randomly over a canvas. There is a tension on almost every track here; Stevens sounds conflicted about surrendering to the volatility of love, like he’s been repressing himself for decades, throwing himself into various arcane pursuits and avoiding the sloppy world of real emotional engagement until now. And now that the floodgates have opened, he finds it hard to focus.

On the penultimate track, “I Want to Be Well,” the normally nauseatingly polite Stevens claims, “I’m not fucking around.” On the 25-minute closing track “Impossible Soul,” however, he then spends almost half an hour fucking around, shifting genres, moods and instrumentation in a manner more scattershot than in any way intriguing. He goes right off the rails at the 10-minute mark, when the normally pitch-perfect Stevens uses AutoTune on his voice, while the choir chants in the background and the electronics start sounding like angry insects. That the last 10 minutes of the song is an attempt at inspirational disco doesn’t redeem a thing, although the listener has to concur when the choir repeats ad nauseum: “Boy we can do much more together … Girl, I want nothing less than pleasure.” Agreed. Too bad we don’t hear it here.

The rest of the album is just as confounding and joyless. On “Now That I’m Older,” it sounds like Stevens is beyond old: he’s actually dead and gone, surrounded by the choral moaning of the ghosts of the past. Maybe that moaning is the sound of his fans, wondering what the hell happened, wondering if falling in love is indeed a form of madness. It sure sounds like it. (Oct. 21)

Download: “Futile Devices,” “Too Much,” “I Walked”


The Thermals – Personal Life (Kill Rock Stars)

This album begins with singer Hutch Harris promising “I’m Going to Change Your Life”; it ends with him singing “You Changed My Life.” In between there are a lot of promises made, promises kept and promise betrayed—often in the same song. Such is life, no?

Harris has a somewhat histrionic way of singing that suggests that something life-shattering is always at stake, but he’s never hectoring or whiny or a variation on an emotionally stunted emo boy. The Thermals have all the excitement and innocence of a teenage punk band, but with a decidedly adult take on emotional complexity. Musically, Harris is relying less on rhythm guitar and lets the rhythm section and his own melodic leads do the heavy instrumental lifting; whereas this band was once a Ramones-like reductionist take on punk pop, Personal Life has more in common with the Pixies—except that Harris is rooted in real life rather than surrealism.

Most importantly, however, every one of these 10 songs sounds like a readymade classic: the songwriting, the performances, and the production (by Death Cab For Cutie’s Chris Walla, who’s also made great albums by Gord Downie and Tegan and Sara in the past year) all combine to make perhaps the finest raw rock’n’roll you’ll hear this year. (Oct. 28)

Download: “I Don’t Believe You,” “Never Listen to Me,” “Not Like Any Other Feeling”


Yann Tiersen – Dust Lane (Anti)

French composer Yann Tiersen’s North American career hinges around one fluke album: the soundtrack to the film Amelie, which was largely comprised of songs from his earlier solo albums. Since then, he also composed to the score to the Academy Award-winning German film Good Bye Lenin!, collaborated with American songwriter Nina Nastasia, and put out a solo album in 2005. The man is much more than whimsical and melancholy accordion songs, and there’s very little on Dust Lane that sounds like Amelie.

Even if accordions and violins are still present, the tone is much more mournful—inspired by death in Tiersen’s family—and, at times, apocalyptic. It has much in common with Montreal’s Godspeed You Black Emperor, full of sawing strings, minor keys and ominous climaxes, especially on the haunting “Palestine.” Spoken passages, ghostly vocals, analog synths, scorching guitar textures and calm acoustic passages all culminate in the carnal closing number, “Fuck Me,” a duet that serves a final moment of uplift and optimism. (Oct. 14)

Download: “Dust Lane,” “Dark Stuff,” “Fuck Me”


Corin Tucker Band – 1,000 Years (Kill Rock Stars)

As one of the two frontwomen for Sleater-Kinney, Corin Tucker was one of the most powerful post-riot-grrrl voices in punk rock for much of the past 15 years. That band is now on indefinite hiatus, and Tucker has released her debut solo album of what she calls “middle-aged mom” music. That’s not entirely true, of course—this doesn’t sound anything like Sarah McLachlan, even if some Sleater-Kinney fans might think it does.

Tucker is exploring a different side of her voice and her writing, toning down the intensity, employing pianos, acoustic guitars and strings and occasionally clashing with her explosive past: “Thrift Store Coats” starts as a piano ballad before turning into a somewhat tentative rocker. If this was a debut album, it would be promising but not fully realized; coming from Tucker, we can’t help but wonder what her former bandmates would have brought to this material, even with the shift in mood; though Tucker herself sounds great, she doesn’t quite gel with her collaborators here.

But we do know that this is definitely not the last we’ll hear from her. As she sings on “Doubt”: “Break up with the boogie? / break up with the beat? / But I just can’t forget what it means to me/ I tried, but I couldn’t leave.” (Oct. 21)


Download: “Half a World Away,” “Doubt,” “Miles Away”