Pre-Polaris 2017 Day Three: Feist, Lisa LeBlanc

The 12th Polaris Music Prize gala is being held on Sept. 18, at the Carlu in Toronto, where 11 jurors locked in a room will decide which one of 10 shortlisted artists will get $50,000. All other nominees receive $3,000.

Every day this week I’ll look at two of the shortlisted albums, assess their chances, and celebrate two albums that didn’t make the shortlist—or, in some cases, even the long list.

On day one I discussed A Tribe Called Red, BadBadNotGood, and should've beens Phillipe B and Japandroids. Day two was Leonard Cohen, Gord Downie, and should’ve beens by Loscil and Tami Neilson.

Onward:

Feist - Pleasure (Universal)

The album (reviewed April 22, 2016):

“That’s what we’re here for! Pleasure!” That’s a strange lyric, song title and album title considering the songs Feist is offering on her fifth album. The songwriter has always been a merchant of melancholy, but here she is audibly emerging from a thick fog, something that she herself terms “a dark night of the soul”—a cliché uncharacteristic of the subtle poetry that informs the rest of the album (and the rest of her discography).

Gone are the many collaborators and instrumentalists: this is a solitary journey consisting of just the guitarist and her old friend Mocky on drums, with longtime engineer Renaud Letang rounding out what Feist calls this albums “peer-o-mid.” The sound is decidedly sparse, as emotionally bare as the lyrics. Such is her skill as a writer that none of it seems particularly personal; she spares us the gory details and tells us, “A man is not his song / and I am not a story.”

Musically, it’s easier to appreciate what Pleasure represents rather than appreciating the album itself—not unlike PJ Harvey’s White Chalk, or Thom Yorke’s The Eraser; one can applaud Feist’s bravery without loving the actual music. It’s best, of course, to leave expectations at the door and discover Pleasure on your own terms.

Later thoughts: As I expected, this album grew on me considerably. Feist has always been more compelling solo than when she performs with a full band; this gives someone who’s never seen her live to hear why that is. She’s at her strongest in the quietest moments; her voice never wavers or whispers or backs down from emotional intensity, no matter the volume. There are moments that work perfectly, and some not so much: the Jarvis Cocker spoken-word cameo on “Century,” or the invasion of Choir Choir Choir on “A Man is Not His Song,” or the man choir on “Any Party”--the latter two embellishments much more likely to work live than on record. But, as with the 2012 Polaris-winning Metals, Feist succeeds by planting plenty of sharp edges in her inherently beautiful music. These are not songs for product placement or latte listening. This is another step forward for an artist who never disappoints, an artist who keeps evolving, and, as I discovered while writing this Exclaim! cover story, an artist who’s more than prepared to walk away from it all if she’s anything less than satisfied.

The chances: Minuscule. No one has ever won Polaris twice, and it would take a really game-changing record to do it. Though this album certainly has enough fans to have landed it on the shortlist, reviews were decidedly mixed, and it’s a hard sell to someone who isn’t already a fan.

Lisa LeBlanc - Why You Wanna Leave, Runway Queen? (Bonsound)

The album: LeBlanc is an appealing performer, no doubt, with a gutsy voice and a delight in both foot-stompin’, banjo-driven two-steps as well as grungy breakup songs, with a bluegrassy blast through a Motorhead cover for kicks. This album captures that energy. But it also places a clear focus on her lyrics, which I’m sure are cathartic if you’ve been through a recent break-up (“Could You At Least Wait Until I’ve Had My Coffee,” “Dump the Guy ASAP,” “5748 km”). Otherwise, her candour comes off full of clunky punchlines and juvenilia (to be fair, the same could be said of Drake--and he appears to be doing rather well). “I won’t say it to your face, so I’ll write a song about it,” goes one line. I kind of wish she wouldn’t. Runway Queen mostly makes me want to reach for old Lucinda Williams records--or the Tami Neilson album (see yesterday’s post).

LeBlanc is an Acadian Montrealer from New Brunswick who only recently started singing in English. This album is very much a breakthrough for her in the rest of Canada, so more power to her--and to her label, Bonsound, whose predominantly francophone roster could use a signal boost.

The chances: Slim. The competition is far too stiff, and I’ll be shocked the day anything remotely rootsy wins the Polaris.

Le Couleur - P.O.P. (Lisbon Lux)

The album: (reviewed June 15, 2017)

Montreal’s Le Couleur have crafted a glorious and at times grandiose record largely rooted in electro-disco and rich in pop melodies that should perk up ears in English Canada and everywhere else.

“Our chief concern is making things sexy, chic and moody,” they told the magazine Noisey. Mission accomplished. With debts to Air, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Pulp and St. Etienne, they offer a modern update on the turn-of-the-century revisionist take on late 60s/early 70s Europop, something that looks even better with more refracting mirrors involved. The tradeoff between female and male lead vocalists is merely one more effective texture in an album that draws you in closer with every subtle detail. The production is warm and retro; the synths are always on the safe side of cheese; the live rhythm section gives it all some muscle. This is a debut album following several EPs; Le Couleur prove well worthy of longer attention spans. This will go down well with daiquiris this summer.

Later thoughts: The single reason I didn’t play this album more often this summer is that the weather sucked. No daiquiris for me. But this album is fantastic. And in a year when everyone dumped on the disco turn by Arcade Fire (I’m in the minority in preferring it to Reflektor), maybe no one was in the mood for more Montrealers in the same ballpark--but nowhere near the stadiums.

Why it didn’t make it: I honestly thought it would. Of all the franco acts on the long list, I thought this had the biggest chance to reach a wider listenership than the few anglo freaks who listen to franco music.

Jessie Reyez - Kiddo (Universal)

The album: It’s an EP, actually. As such, it’s more of an introduction--but this is one hell of an opening argument. Reyez is a 26-year-old Colombian-Canadian who can rap like (vintage) Nicki Minaj and sing a bluesy waltz like Amy Winehouse, and specializes in fiery diss tracks like “Fuck It” and the particularly pointed “Gatekeeper.” (Reyez’s plain-spokenness works considerably better in her chosen genre than Lisa LeBlanc’s.) One track might echo the so-called “Toronto sound” of chilly, sparse beats; the next sounds like an electro-Brazilian Carnival rave-up (“Blue Ribbon”). Reyez covers a lot of bases in a short amount of time, with more personality than the entire OVO posse combined.  

Here is but one side of her:

Why it didn’t make it: It’s a debut EP. Reyez is new enough that most people probably see more potential here than someone who arrives with the complete package. And Polaris being an album prize that only recently relaxed its rules to include EPs, some jurors feel that six three-minute songs are not enough to make a major artistic statement. Finally, hip-hop will always face an uphill climb in this country if it hasn’t been validated elsewhere first, especially if it’s decidedly modern. But make no mistake: Jessie Reyez will be here next year, and likely for many years after that.

And here's the rather Feist-y side of her, on the Tonight Show:

Pre-Polaris 2017 Day Two: Leonard Cohen, Gord Downie

The 12^th Polaris Music Prize gala is being held on Sept. 18, at the Carlu in Toronto, where 11 jurors locked in a room will decide which one of 10 shortlisted artists will get $50,000. All other nominees receive $3,000.

Every day this week I’ll look at two of the shortlisted albums, assess their chances, and celebrate two albums that didn’t make the shortlist—or, in some cases, even the long list. 

On day one I discussed A Tribe Called Red, BadBadNotGood, and should've beens Phillipe B and Japandroids.

Onwards:

Leonard Cohen – You Want It Darker (Columbia)

Gord Downie – Secret Path (Arts and Crafts)

Oddly enough, both these records came out the same week. I reviewed them together on Oct. 27. This is that review.

Happy Hallowe’en! Feliz Dia de los Muertos! Two of Canada’s greatest poets would like to talk to you about death. 

One is 82 years old: his body is failing him and he’s made a meditation on mortality that’s easily one of the finest records he’s ever made. [ed: he died a month after the album came out.] The other is 52 with a diagnosis of terminal brain cancer: he’s processing his own death by atoning for the death of another, a 12-year-old boy who died trying to escape abuse at a government-sanctioned institution. 

Cohen’s record is a revelation. He’s been this dark before, he’s made records this sparse before, his wry wit has always been in evidence. Here, however, every moment here carries great weight, lyrically and sonically. It’s as slick as anything he’s done in the last 35 years, but with largely acoustic instruments in place of synths. 

Great credit must go to Cohen’s son, Adam, who sat in the producer’s chair. Adam has (justifiably) taken a lot of flak for his own records, but it turns out he’s an excellent producer, judiciously employing only the most appropriate window dressing for the skeletons of blues and country songs his father wrote this time out. There’s the rumbling bass and choir of Jewish cantors on the devastating title track; the twangy, Twin-Peaks-ish guitar on “Leaving the Table”; the familiar sound of female backing singers on “Traveling Light” (one of only two tracks where that classic Cohenesque embellishment appears); the weeping violins. 

Both of Cohen’s recent comeback records—2012’s Old Ideas, 2014’s Popular Problems—have proven him to be as powerful as he is prolific in his third act, but this one is on a whole other plain. He claims he’s still writing and has more music he wants to finish. As insatiable as Cohen fans are, one can’t help but secretly—and, morbidly—hope that this is his final will and testament. [ed: it was]

[My Leonard Cohen obit in Maclean's is here.]

Gord Downie told the Globe and Mail last weekend, “If Secret Path is the last thing I ever do, I’ll be happy.” 

He’s already succeeded on one level: he’s taken a long-forgotten tragic tale, that of a 12-year-old boy, Chanie Wenjack, who died of exposure, beside train tracks, trying to walk 600 km home from a residential school. That was exactly 50 years ago; a Maclean’s story was written about the case after an inquest took place—an inquest whose recommendations, of course, went unheeded. Unless you’ve had a media blackout, you probably already know that this album comes with a graphic novel by Jeff Lemire (Essex County) and an animated film aired on CBC-TV. There are several other Wenjack projects out there as well, including a Joseph Boyden novella; Boyden also talks about the case on the new Tribe Called Red album. 

There’s a lot to unpack here: but what about the music? The production by Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew and the Stills’ Dave Hamelin is crisp and sparse, in ways that sound like nothing else Downie has ever recorded. The result is that his voice sounds fantastic; it’s unclear if he’s become a better singer, or if he’s just never allowed us to hear him like this, not even during the most fragile moments of his discography both in and outside the Tragically Hip, not even 2001’s Coke Machine Glow. [ed note: I’m a complete idiot. Downie had upped his singing game as far back as 2006’s World Container.] Drew and Hamelin know how to create vast soundscapes with minimal instrumentation, the right synths and plenty of reverb, evoking the appropriate sense of isolation and empathy necessary for the subject matter. 

The lyrics are curious. Gord Downie never does anything directly; hell, even that song about Bill Barilko is narrated by some young punk feigning experience, a trait that’s personified in his makeshift, faux fifty-mission cap. Secret Path does not tell the story of Chanie Wenjack, at least not a narrative recognizable to anyone who read the Maclean’s story that inspired the album. Instead, it draws some elements of Wenjack’s story—like the fact he set out on the final leg of his journey with only seven matches in a jar and a windbreaker to provide him warmth—and extrapolates from there. If you heard any track here out of context, you’d be hard pressed to link it to Wenjack or, in fact, anything remotely related to issues illuminated by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The good news: it’s not a preachy record, not in the least. The bad news: it’s unclear how effective it is as a teaching tool, which was the intention of Downie and his brother Mike, a filmmaker. 

But because this is Gord Downie in 2016, immediately following one of the landmark cultural events of this generation, he has our ears. And he’s using the moment to not necessarily tell the story, but to draw our attention to a story mainstream Canada has not wanted to tell.  

Later thoughts:

We’re now almost a year removed from the emotional weight that accompanied these records’ release. We’ve lost Leonard, which was not a shock to anyone, and yet the outpouring of grief was enormous, just as it was for David Bowie and Prince the same calendar year. That he went out on such a high note is a glorious epitaph; this record didn’t rack up Junos and a spot on this shortlist out of sympathy—it’s a stunning work that stands with his very best.

While we mourn Cohen, there’s also the relief that Downie is still with us to see his message taken to heart, to receive an Order of Canada, to see this album get shortlisted for Polaris—something no other Tragically Hip record or Downie solo project has done. Most important, he’s been able to see his primary goal achieved, to see Secret Path being used in schools to educate children about a part of Canadian history that we’ve all been happy to ignore for a century, either willfully or out of genuine ignorance. Despite my own doubts about the directness of the lyrics, the context is everything: no one stumbles upon this record not knowing what it is. Maybe no one will ever put this on as background music, but children’s choirs are singing these songs. The art will endure. The message will resonate further than anything else Downie has ever written. Mission accomplished.

If cynics need further evidence, watch this short doc.

The chances:

You Want It Darker won a Juno, as well it should have. But Polaris? Not likely. Buffy Sainte-Marie notwithstanding, Polaris usually skews young, and is unlikely to give the equivalent of a posthumous lifetime achievement award, even to one of the greatest songwriters ever born on this soil. Naturally, the Cohen record is musically conservative. The guy was 82. Comparing it to Weaves or Lido Pimienta is, frankly, ridiculous—but that’s inherent in the Polaris mandate to break down all genre divisions. This is an album prize, plain and simple—and this is as cohesive a collection of songs as you’ll ever find, by a master of the form. By that measure, it deserves to win. It’s a great record; I voted for it and I’m glad it’s on the shortlist. But I don’t think it should win the Polaris.

Likewise with Downie. His record is nowhere near as strong as Cohen’s—few are. Again, even comparing these two poets is ridiculous, exposing the fallacies of all awards anywhere, anytime. Their presence on this shortlist must be humbling to everyone else on it. But, to paraphrase Downie’s vision of this country, Polaris should be the prize of the next 150 years, not the Canada of the past. And in a year fraught with discussion of cultural appropriation, it would be downright weird to weigh Secret Path over Halluci Nation. If for some reason Secret Path wins, you can be sure that Downie is going to turn around and give it directly to A Tribe Called Red. Coz he’s a helluva guy.

No matter what happens, I’m really looking forward to the winner’s speech this year.

The could’ve, should’ve beens:

Loscil – Monument Builders (Kranky)

The album: (reviewed Dec. 1, 2016)

Why Vancouver composer Scott Morgan, a.k.a. Loscil, has not been tapped for any Oscar-bait assignments is anyone’s guess. (He has, however, scored the 2006 Genie winner for Best Documentary: Scared Sacred.) He’s been creating fascinating minimalist ambient music for more than a decade, and his 11^th album could well become a calling card. Inspired directly by Philip Glass’s stunning score for the 1982 film Koyaanisqatsi, as well as the photographs of devastated landscapes by Edward Burtynsky, Monument Builders is sparse, expansive and evocative. French horns and percussion permeate the occasionally pulsing synths and layered atmospherics; melodies and movements are glacial yet hardly obscured.

In these past few months, if not the past year, we’ve all had plenty of reasons to shut off the noise of the world and mourn the losses that pile up seemingly every week. In addition to everything else 2016 has handed us, between this record, Johan Johansson’s Arrival soundtrack and Colin Stetson’s reimagining of Gorecki’s “Sorrow” symphony, it’s also given us an antidote. 

Later thoughts: There are few ambient albums I go back and play somewhat regularly; this is one of them. Tense and meditative at the same time, Loscil’s music never fades into the background.

Why it didn’t even make the long list: Ambient music doesn’t make it on Polaris lists, even if it shares qualities with longtime favourites Godspeed You Black Emperor or Tim Hecker (oddly, Hecker’s latest didn’t make the cut last year; previous Polaris winners Godspeed has requested that nothing they do be considered for Polaris ever again). There have been experimental records shortlisted before, but nothing as minimal as this tends to cut through in the age of distraction.

Tami Neilson – Don’t Be Afraid (Outside)

The album: (reviewed Sept. 22, 2016)

This Canadian is a star in her adopted nation of New Zealand, where she’s racked up plenty of country music awards and songwriting accolades. Don’t Be Afraid is only her second album to be released in her motherland, and we’d be fools to ignore this powerhouse voice any longer—a voice that could front an amplified band without the use of a microphone. 

Her last album, Dynamite!, was cut from the Patsy Cline mould, very much rooted in country music from the late ’50s, early ’60s. This time out the vibe is still decidedly old school, but Neilson gets bluesier and bolder, touching on torch songs and rockabilly and soul. Informed by the death of her beloved father—with whom she was in a family band when she was a kid—Don’t Be Afraid is considerably darker in tone, which gives her vocals even more of a chance to dig in deep. On the title track, she goes for full-out gospel-style projection over a slow blues, sounding more like Aretha Franklin that one would ever expect from this country belter. 

Later thoughts: Neilson is one of the most exhilarating vocalists I’ve ever seen in my life—and I’m not saying that just to be hyperbolic. But credit should also go to her ace band, including brother Jay on guitar—one of the few people who can conjure the ghost of the late Pops Staples.

Why it didn’t even make the long list: I missed Neilson’s last show in Toronto, but my lady and a friend went—and were apparently the youngest people in the audience by about 20 years. Hip baby boomers have got her number, but I’m not sure anyone under 35 gives a shit about roots music at all anymore, especially artists with such old-school chops as Neilson and her band. Okay, gramps out.

Tomorrow: Feist, Lisa LeBlanc

Pre-Polaris 2017 Day One: A Tribe Called Red, BadBadNotGood

Hey! Long time no blog. I’m writing a book with no time to lose. Details here. Early excerpt here. But I felt I had to return for the annual Polaris posts.

The 12^th Polaris Music Prize gala is being held on Sept. 18, at the Carlu in Toronto, where 11 jurors locked in a room will decide which one of 10 shortlisted artists will get $50,000. All other nominees receive $3,000.

Every day this week I’ll look at two of the shortlisted albums, assess their chances, and celebrate two albums that didn’t make the shortlist—or, in some cases, even the long list. 

A Tribe Called Red – We Are the Halluci Nation (Pirates Blend)

The album: (review from Sept. 22, 2016)

This Tribe just got a whole lot bigger. 

Yes, this three-man DJ trio from Ottawa is poised to accelerate their ascent from local club nights to critical acclaim to Coachella with this, their third album, two years in the making. 

But while in the past they built their sound primarily from samples of powwow groups licensed from the Tribal Spirit label, this time out they reached out directly to acts like Northern Voice and Black Bear, both based in the Manawan region of central Quebec. That’s not surprising. 

This time out they also welcomed to the Tribe kindred spirits Tanya Tagaq and Leonard Sumner, as well as Kenyan-Canadian Shad, and Colombian-Canadian Lido Pimienta. They’ve gone international, inviting African-American poet Saul William, Tuscarora North Carolinian singer Jennifer Kreisberg, and Maxida Märak, a Finnish singer of the Sami people. We Are the Halluci Nation takes its title from John Trudell, the legendary activist and poet of the American Indian Movement; the recordings he contributed to this project were among the last he ever made before he died of cancer last December.

It’s easy to uncharitably suggest that all A Tribe Called Red does is merely marry powwow singing to EDM, a chocolate-and-peanut-butter mash-up that continues to pay rich dividends here. There are certainly moments that succumb to EDM clichés, but Tribe has always had a broader musical vision in play—as one would expect from a group whose every intention is to shatter stereotypes. The trio doesn’t just lazily cut and paste: the rhythms underneath emulate the powwow drums while simultaneously turning them on their head for the digital age. The percussive playfulness with Tagaq is delightful; the tracks with Pimienta echo the electro-cumbia sound of modern South America. Lead single “R.E.D.,” which features Yasiin Bey (a.k.a. Mos Def), Iraqi-Canadian MC Narcy and Black Bear, rides a slow, grinding, heavy riff that could be a Black Sabbath cover. 

Music aside, Halluci Nation articulates resistance in ways rarely heard in hip-hop and practically never in EDM (“As First Nations people, everything we do is political,” pointed out the liner notes on 2013’s Nation II Nation). And the album doesn’t even include their 2015 “Thanksgiving special” single “Burn Your Village to the Ground.”

It’s not an understatement to say that A Tribe Called Red is redefining public consciousness of Canada’s First Nations people. One listen to this record will make the reasons why incredibly obvious.

Later thoughts:

As much as I love what this album is, I wish I loved this album more. It’s likely my age, but the more EDM moments drag this album down a bit for me. A solo record by former member DJ Shub, released a few months later, reminded me of what’s missing on this record: a real sense of swing and funk, as heard on the Nation II Nation single “Sisters.” I’m still more interested in hearing how much further they push their sound, but neither pondering the past or imagining the future should take away from how strong this album is on its own.

The chances:

Excellent. Consider this a coronation. The fact that it features fellow shortlisters Lido Pimienta and Tagaq, as well as former shortlister and host Shad, makes this prime Polaris bait. This would actually be the most Polaris win ever. It’s all but inevitable.

Badbadnotgood – IV (Arts and Crafts)

The album: (reviewed July 7, 2016)

From Led Zeppelin IV to Black Mountain IV—hell, even Foreigner 4—and now the fourth album from Toronto hip-hop/jazz band Badbadnotgood, putting the number four in a title suggests you’re saving your best ideas for the music, not the marketing, and the fourth album is the ideal time to crystallize the myriad directions the band had taken up until now. 

For Badbadnotgood—who, after starting out with jazz covers of hip-hop tracks came into their own on a full-length collaboration with Ghostface Killah and their 2014 album III—this finds them stepping up their game once again, moving away from hip-hop slightly (collaborations with Kaytranada and Mick Jenkins notwithstanding) and toward the funk of Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters and the cinematic esoterica of space-age bachelor pad music a la Esquivel or Broadcast. They also dip into sultry soul music, with pop songs sung by Charlotte Day Wilson and a particularly surprising turn by Future Islands’ Sam Herring, on which he channels the late Bobby Womack. 

Part of IV’s success is the natural evolution of these young players, but also the permanent addition of saxophonist Leland Whitty, whose guest spots on III were a highlight. Nonetheless, they enlist avant jazz star Colin Stetson to lend a beefy, baritone bottom end to “Confessions Pt. II,” where he trades leads with Whitty while the band vamps on what could be a ’70s action film soundtrack underneath.

Exciting as it is, even better is anticipating where this band will venture next. Because it sounds like the sky’s the limit.

Later thoughts:

Still love it. Voted for it. Finally saw them live, and was blown away. And goddammit, that Sam Herring song is one of my favourite songs of the last year.

The chances:

Next to A Tribe Called Red? Zip. The game here is to try and figure out which three of the 10 shortlisted records the jury will end up voting on after two elimination rounds. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was one of them, as the only thing remotely resembling a hip-hop record here (note: it’s not a hip-hop record). Previous winner Kaytranada shows up here, as does two-time shortlister Colin Stetson and likely future shortlister Charlotte Day Wilson.

The could’ve been, should’ve beens

Phillipe B – La grande nuit vidéo (Bonsound)

The album:

This year had more franco artists on the long list than ever; none made the shortlist. This one probably should have. Phillipe B owes equal debts to Nick Drake and French chanson; these spare songs for either acoustic guitar or piano are embellished by gorgeous and haunting string arrangements, evocative and cinematic textures that elevate the songwriter’s subtle strokes.

Why it didn’t make it:  

This was a revelation to me on this year’s long list, and it’s a grower; its release two weeks before the Polaris cutoff might have hurt its chances. There’s another sad-sack Montrealer who made the shortlist instead of Philippe B, but I can’t fathom how anyone could pick the Leif Vollebekk record over this one. Oh wait—it’s in French.

Japandroids – Near to the Wild Heart of Life (Arts and Crafts)

The album: (reviewed January 22; my Maclean’s piece here)

“If they try to slow you down, tell them all to go to hell.” So went the chorus to “The House That Heaven Built,” one of many anthems on 2012’s Celebration Rock that vaulted Japandroids from poorly kept secret of the Vancouver underground into beloved rock’n’roll saviours. And yet they did slow down: guitarist Brian King moved to Toronto; drummer Dave Prowse stayed in Vancouver; they took two years writing and recording this, their third album and first in 4½ years.

Japandroids are a guitar-drums duo, but there’s nothing simple about them. Wild Heart is a huge leap forward in terms of songwriting, performance and production. Whereas before they could be accused of simply extending a lineage that runs from Bruce Springsteen to the Constantines, here they really come their own. These are much more than just drunken Saturday night odes to youth, romance, rock’n’roll and the open road (not necessarily in that order) that used to be Japandroids’ stock and trade. That still exists here: “North South East West” is exactly the kind of fist-pumping catharsis one expects from this band; expect this one to be a key part of the soundtrack of 2017. But they’re both in their mid-thirties now, and so their signature intensity is being applied to varying tempos and textures, including instrumentation that will be difficult to duplicate onstage as a duo. Wild Heart is very much an album as opposed to a live document. 

Slowing down, in more ways than one, has made Japandroids an even better band. Great rock bands are getting fewer and fewer. This one is fighting the good fight.

Why it didn’t make it:

Polaris is traditionally allergic to Western Canada, but I don’t think that was the problem for these former shortlisters. Fans of the first two records felt the band was pushing themselves beyond their reach here, citing the 7.5-minute mid-tempo “Arc of Bar” as exhibit A. To each their own: I thought that track and others made this more interesting than the non-stop fist-pumping that this band obviously excels at. Hell, I’d give them the Polaris for “North South East West” alone. But that’s me. Others knocked the lyrics, and if you didn’t get past the title track I’d kind of understand why: “I used to be good and now I’m bad.” The last verse of the song uncomfortably evokes an old anti-abortion film that Christian youth of yore will no doubt remember, in a downright clunky couplet: “It was bedlam in my bed that night / And like a silent scream / My body broke out in a sweat / From seeing you in dreams.” (For those fortunate not to know, the 1984 film was called The Silent Scream.) Anyway, Polaris or no Polaris, this band is laughing all the way to Massey Hall, where they’re headlining on October 24.

Tomorrow: Leonard Cohen and Gord Downie