this was hard, it was dumb, we should do it again

it's not "The Rural Saskatchewan Advantage," cause there isn't one

In my constantly expanding list of music I've been disgustingly late on, I'm doing a bit better if you judge by The Rural Alberta Advantage. I actually picked up quite quick on them from hearing "Don't Haunt This Place" from a blog that now escapes my memory. It was back in April of this year...and I loved it. Everything about it. I never tired of hearing it, it was a perfect jam, short and sweet -- but in usual fashion, I never gave their album Hometowns a chance, even after a glowing 8.0/10 review from Pitchfork, probably my most trusted source for musical advice. Late in November though, after a happenchance incident I'll describe in a bit, I decided I had to get the rest of the album and give it a spin.

In a bit of my defense, "The Deathbridge In Lethbridge" was the second song I heard off Hometowns, and it's probably the one black sheep from the outstanding tracklist. But instead of getting into all that, you know what? If any group's gonna get the song-by-song album review treatment, I have no problem giving it to The Rural Alberta Advantage:

"The Ballad Of The RAA" | With such a self-referencing name, it's a pretty good track to start an album with. The fast-paced and muted drum kick gets things going, and Neils Edenloff's voice exhibits itself in a way that you're either like "yeah, I really like this guy, this is gonna be good" -- or basically the exact opposite reaction. You can feel the emotion and strain in his delivery, and the "singing in a barn" exhibition of it during the a capella ending is icing on the cake, along with the triangle tinkles playing like snowflakes above the insistent drumming. I've heard that he gives off a Jeff Mangum-like vibe (of Neutral Milk Hotel), but having heard maybe one or two of NMH's tunes, it's something I'd have to look more into before I could say one way or the other.

"Rush Apart" | There's something endlessly charming about the acoustic guitar and Edenloff's far-away-sounding vocals that start off "Rush Apart." In an album of comparatively short songs (most are in the two-minute range), this is the second-shortest at 1:56, but still manages to flesh itself out into something more than respectable. It's like a campfire tune that managed to convince an entire drumset to make the trek. When Nils says "it's hard to know what's right/I need you tonight," it's one of the love-soaked references on an album chock-full of them. You'd love to know who hurt him this badly, because there has to be a place where all this creativity stems from. And on that note, this is probably not an album you want to be listening to while you're with someone; it functions much better when you're trying to get over someone.

"The Deathbridge In Lethbridge" | The RAA does punk? The vocals have an almost-evil bent to them, no doubt helped by the line "you let me down, I let you down/with your grandfather in the ground." Not to say it's not a good song - it is - but it seems kind of out of place with the rest of the tracks on Hometowns. The others tend to have a more or less melancholy feel to them, instead of the seemingly revengeful tone of "Deathbridge." At least they named it the right way though. Let's skip ahead, cause as mentioned above, this one pretty much turned me off The RAA the first few times I laid ears on it.

"Don't Haunt This Place" | The track that pretty much got it started for me with these guys. It's got that same upbeat and stuttering drumming (courtesy of part-time Woodhands member Paul Banwatt...a fact I found out when I caught both groups at Osheaga this summer), and if I ever said "Sun In An Empty Room" was the best song to play if you were leaving an old apartment Friends-style (and I did say that), this would certainly be a close runner-up -- especially if you shared said apartment with a significant other. The lyrics change up confusingly between declaring the whole ordeal as "hard" and "fun" then switching to "hard" and "dumb" effortlessly. Keyboardist Amy Cole makes one of her few cameos providing precious backing vocals, and the emotions are laid bare for all to see with crisp-clear lyricism.

"The Deadroads" | For all the acoustic guitar abounding on Hometowns, you can't really hear many familiar strains from other songs, a rarity when all you've got to work with are six strings and some chords. The drumming again makes itself well-known here, but I'm not gonna take all the credit for picking up on it; Pitchfork pointed it out pretty well in their review, and I can't help hearing the album without focusing strongly on the superb percussion. It's much the same way I listen to The New Pornographers' Twin Cinema; I've always been a fan of nerdishly drumming along to the beat, and that album along with Hometowns provide me with ample and exemplary opportunities. The "oooo-oooo-oooo-oooooooo"s add that little something extra to this tune, and Nils brings his now-dependable rakish croon to the forefront once again.

"Drain The Blood" | If "Don't Haunt This Place" first turned me on to the group, and "The Deathbridge In Lethbridge" almost turned me off of them, then "Drain The Blood" was that track that truly sold me on The RAA and sucked me in enough to get Hometowns. Even at 2:50 long, this is one of those strange tracks that feels much shorter than that, a quick-burst of sound and passion. It's one of the few where Edenloff showcases more than one side of his voice: the mid-range delivery in the verses, the more throaty and alternately pleading vocals of the chorus, and the outright desperate croaks in the break the song so abruptly builds towards.

Whereas most songs are rollercoaster rides, with multiple ups and downs, "Drain The Blood" comes off like those super-fast thrill rides, that speed you up until you think you can't go any faster, then it's all over like that. It also signals the album turning more to a deemed cohesiveness: where the first few songs kind of stand apart, and prepare you for some cross-Alberta road trip, "Drain The Blood" is like where the road-trip comes to a head, and you know you can't really look at the people you're with quite the same again for the rest of the trip/album.

"Luciana" | In reference to the above, this is kind of that "night after" track, where you can just imagine having a few too many at the local dive bar, and The RAA playing this tune up on stage the whole while. The drums really stand out here for me, the crashing cymbals accentuating Nils' now-whining voice with a vigour that's kind of lacking from the vocal delivery (not something you can say often about the vocals on Hometowns). The horn section also makes an appearance, showing The RAA's versatility and continually-surprising take on alternative rock: they do everything well. Like it's not even fair; they pick and choose their styles and pull them all off expertly, like they've been at this much longer than the four years it's been since they formed. Every track is a rewarding listen, and the album as a whole is that much more listenable because of that.

"Frank, AB" | They also tend to nail those little things that bring their songs to that "next level." They again employ some "oooo-oooo"s, this time with male vocals, and add in the right amount of bass, snare, and everything else that makes their instrumentation just lush enough without being overpowering. The lonesomeness of "Frank, AB" is easy to hear, like it's the hangover "morning after" to the above track. The minute-long a capella at the end is especially moving, with Amy joining in with Nils ever so quietly, like the hand on his back as he's getting it all off his chest.

As an aside, before I wrote this entire review, I never really considered Hometowns as anything more than a love-and-loss-tinged album, but the closer I listen and analyze it, the road trip analogy and all the emotions and scenery that goes with it makes more and more sense, as even some of the next few tracks will show. The fact it works on so many levels is another great thing about the compilation. Heck, for all the place-name-dropping going on, just about the only thing I haven't picked up on yet is the painting of visual scenery you'd assume would come from the album's evocative cover art.

"The Air" | A swooning acoustic guitar and piano-inflected slow-it-down kinda tune? Yeah, I guess there truly is a bit of everything on here. "The Air" literally clears the air, even though it states "the air is unbearably harmful tonight." The clean slate provided by the sparse instrumentation lets the piano shine and the guitar slide along with purpose, keeping a calming quiet over everything before the album itself slows the pace down a bit. Not much to say here; you just have to check out Hometowns and hear for yourself.

"Sleep All Day" | Of all the tunes, this is probably my favorite to drum along to, with the exceptionally nimble snare providing the perfect balance to the organ-like keyboard and longing vocals. For the monotony of the track (over 3:46, it never really goes up, but it never creeps that far down either) it keeps your attention admirably. I really can't rave enough about the diversity of this album. Even though there's a few of these slower numbers, they're never done the same way, and all the originality and creativity in the world seeps out of them in a way I've heard from few groups, let alone on their debut full-length. I have all the faith in the world that The RAA will be able to bang out another album on endlessly enjoyable folk-rock-pop along the same lines as Hometowns, without copying any of the essence or ideas from the latter.

"Four Night Rider" | The shortest tune on here, by one second over "Rush Apart," you can truly feel the frenetic pace set forth by the energetic drumming, and when everything kind of explodes right before the end, you can easily hear the full musical force of the trio in a kind of last gasp effort to convince you that, hey, if you don't like us by now, we're really gonna try our damnedest anyways. Amy's vocals come through the strongest right before that section, drowning out Edenloff's for the first and only time on the album. There's nothing on "Four Night Rider" that hints towards the drawn-out and boring "four night bike ride out of town" to Edmonton professed by the band. There's even an underlying triumph to it all that's a little hard to explain on here, so again, you've really gotta check out the full album.

"Edmonton" | If it was all building up to something, Hometowns' true piece-du-resistance is this tune, just by an edge over the other amazing standouts on the album. It starts off boisterous and doesn't let up until the tambourine breaks in around 1:45; but it's just setting you up for the re-build, where the percussion builds back up again, the guitar becomes more insistent, Edenloff's voice gets that familiar strain, the lyrics take their most powerful turn, and then after the once-through, it slows down once more into the emotional "and I will never try/to forget you're not alive," then breaks out into full-force once again for the victory lap around the whole damn countryside.

On a note again: I write each song's review while I listen to it on repeat. It's a common thing I do whenever I review any song or album, because it puts me in the best mood to write about each individual track. With every other song on here though, I've had to take multiple listens to encapsulate what I really want to say about it; with "Edmonton" however, I banged it out in almost precisely the 3:52 run-time of the song. I'm not trying to say that I'm a fast typer or that I'm so good at describing songs or whatever -- my point is that "Edmonton" is so immediate, so good, that it can't help but being taken at face value, because it's raw emotion on a musical level. Plus it kinda gets to me in a way, so for whatever reason, I wouldn't wanna go through the whole process of listening to it again, with that slow build and everything. Take that for what you will.

"In The Summertime" | Much like the love interest in this tune, we're done. I have some personal interest in this song actually, and every time I listen to Hometowns all the way through, it's always "Edmonton" and "In The Summertime" that get to me the most. I don't know if it's just where I am right now in my life, or if The Rural Alberta Advantage just crafts songs so damn well that they call to mind feelings and emotions you didn't think could well up so easily like that. It doesn't make much sense for me to try and explain this one, and I say that just as it closes out its 2:38 song length.

I don't think I've ever been so emotionally invested in an album to be honest, and it kind of pains me to say that, because I wonder where I was way back in July when this thing actually came out and I had my chance. But I guess life's all about those missed chances...but also about the joy you feel when you're still able to get what you desire, even after it's seemingly too late. Sorry.

(Buy Hometowns here: Amazon)

Sunday Night Spotlight | No. 3 | (on a Tuesday)

your guess is as good as mine

Little Dragon is a Swedish pop group. Among other things I've professed my love for on here, European sugar-pop is probably my biggest guilty pleasure of any. It makes no sense to me: I hate things that sound like the 80's. I hate pop music (in its current state). But I love Swedish people. Okay, I've only ever seen one Swede in my life that I know of, and that was Lykke Li. But I imagine they're all just as cool as her. I'm extrapolating here. Either way, Little Dragon are at least deserving of a Sunday Night Spotlight -- even if it is Tuesday.

They make slightly downtempo and dreamy pop, and lead singer Yukimi Nagano (yes, half-Japanese, half-Swedish), sounds eerily similar to Lykke Li, which is probably why I like Little Dragon so much in the first place. The quirky instrumentation is definitely there, mixing slippery drums with synthesizers, whistle noises, and even one song seemingly sampling that noise Mario made when he jumped up. Yukimi's flighty voice is the perfect compliment to all the above, delivering an airy accompaniment in cutely endearing English. There's so much summer in recent release Machine Dreams that it's a shame it just came to this side of the ocean in the fall.

Little Dragon - Never Never

"Never Never" is probably as downtempo as Little Dragon actually gets, but it still carries with it a bit of swagger, lilting along on the strength of the drum hits and Nagano's perfectly up-and-down, side-to-side vocals. It has a bit of a lounge-y feel to it in the verses, but never feels old or staid thanks to smile-inducing bridge and chorus, with its synthesizers working on overtime to produce the desired pick-me-up. When you listen to a song like this and call it "pop," you're ostensibly putting in it in the same dimension as the tunes you hear when you turn on the radio. But all you hear on the dial is a bastardization of the genre -- Little Dragon delivers pop music with a retro vibe, and in the way it's supposed to be heard.

Little Dragon - Swimming

"Swimming" on the flip-side is Little Dragon at its quirkiest. "ooooh-oooh"s abound, and the simple piano chords lay down the basis of a boy-girl story -- told on top of a tune you could easily imagine soundtracking a silent film, at the part where the couple-to-be is running around the park, playing a most-flirtatious round of hide-and-seek, peeking out from the trees just in time to see their crush and run off to their next hiding spot. (Wow, if that's not evocative enough - whether good or bad - I don't know what is. Try imaging Charlie Chaplin and seeing the whole thing in black-and-white and that might help a bit.)

Yukimi is good at some juxtaposition of sultry and kooky, her voice emoting both at different times, with the aide of that complimentary instrumentation. On top of "Swimming" and "Never Never," there's a few other tracks from Machine Dreams that border on dream-pop, thanks to their deft use of atmospherics and space. It just goes to prove that what you don't use is just as important as what you do -- silence is not nothing, it is simply the absence of sound, and sound and silence have to work in an effective tandem to make music truly great. Little Dragon know when to carry on a beat, when to cut it short, when to change it up. Sometimes they may over-indulge, like the "why'd they do that?" break on "Looking Glass," but largely, Machine Dreams is an enjoyable album, full of everything there is to love about 80's-tinged European pop music at the moment.

Buy Machine Dreams here: Amazon

now I'm just crazy, and fucked in the head

Girls really had to grow on me. No, not like that -- Girls, the band. Maybe a bit less than the xx, I was wary of the hype surrounding these guys. Pitchfork's review had a most interesting story on the band's background, but that still wasn't enough to get me to listen to the group. An initial listen to "Laura" didn't convince me of their talent any more either. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I half-recall listening to the particular track featured in this post, "Lust For Life," but if I really liked it that first time (in the summer if I remember at all), it would certainly stick out in my memory a bit more than it seems to right now.

No, it took a very random and recent listen to "Lust For Life" for me to warm up to Girls even a little bit. I'm still not totally into them, and it hasn't even been two weeks that I've had the track I'm speaking of. But -- damn is it ever catchy. At 2:25, I've probably taken longer pees. But the ridiculously jangling guitars, the almost-cartoonish half-croon/half-whine of lead singer Christopher Owens, the barely-there beach vibe, the sustained tempo of the whole thing (not much time to really do anything different with it anyway), the out-of-nowhere harmonica riff that for the life of me I can't place quite which 90's TV show it reminds me of...for God's sake, it's not really fair that a song with really only one verse can be this good. Even the way it trails off at the end is irresistible, and I frankly can't get enough of the song.

Thankfully -- and probably a big reason why I like the song so much -- what it's lacking is that "chillwave" beach-haze, symptomatic of this summer's drowned-out, barely-audible excuses for sun-soaked soundtracks. The song could've easily went that way, but laid bare (or what some people might call "not produced with layer-upon-layer of tape-deck hiss, pushed to the background vocals, and unrecognizably distorted guitar"), it sounds ten times better than anything else of a similar ilk put out in the last six months.

Girls - Lust For Life

Obviously if you wanted to, you could delve into the deeper meaning of the track, as there's certainly enough there to work with. Owens' probably-personal longings -- some we can relate to (sun tans, beach houses, bottles of wine) and some we can't (boyfriends, for those of us heterosexual males; and fathers, for those of us who grew up with them) -- abound. Vulgar thoughts of insanity and matters of the heart even wander their way into the condensed-soup of a song, but it never feels like too much -- rather, it feels just right. Even if seemingly nothing in Owens' world is.

did you dive too deep, like you always do?

Music for me isn't just the sounds. It's the feelings and the memories and the stories associated with those unique sounds. Sometimes it's complicated, like a concert experience. Sometimes it's as simple as a memorable tune in your car or on the radio (not a great chance it was on the radio nowadays though). "Lions For Scottie" by Hey Rosetta! has a very abstract backstory for me.

My younger sister occasionally borrows my car. While I usually listen to my mp3 player when I drive, she brings along her own mix CD's, which she tends to leave in the car afterwards. After I moved out this September, I started taking quick drives around town, as opposed to the half-hour treks I used to commute on before my move, so that meant either forgetting or foregoing my mp3 altogether. As alluded to above however, the radio absolutely sucks in Halifax. So on those quick drives, which would sometimes extend into mini-shopping trips or proverbial taxi rides for my roommates, my sister's CD's came in more than handy.

On one particularly eclectic mix, I found some Noah & The Whale, Death Cab For Cutie, Joel Plaskett, some oldies, and a few Hey Rosetta! cuts. Very representative of my sister's listening habits to say the least. Those Hey Rosetta! tracks really connected with me though -- until then, I'd really only listened to one of their songs with any consistency, aside from seeing them in concert this summer. So picking her up one night from work, I asked if the songs were indeed by Hey Rosetta!, and told her how much I liked them. A while later, I got the band's two albums (as well as a concert ticket for their Halifax show this December) and though I'm still missing a few songs, they've got a solid catalog already just from that pair.

"Lions For Scottie" really stood out to me for one reason or another though. It's one of the more immediate songs the group has, starting with a few drumstick hits and launching into a full-out assault right off the top. It doesn't build and well up like most other Hey Rosetta! tracks, and singer Tim Baker's vocals are among his most exuberant and impassioned on the Plan Your Escape disc "Lions For Scottie" comes from. Though the album cut is 7:41 long, the meat of it really only extends 3:26 in, then gives way to a markedly more somber and diametrically opposed affair. In iTunes, I left that self-titled "Extended Mix" alone as part of the whole album, and cut myself the shorter version for easier listening to the single. Take a listen to it for yourself here:

Hey Rosetta! - Lions For Scottie

Halifax Pop Explosion | Day 2

The Got To Get Got (courtesy of TheCoast's flickr photo-pool)

You'll notice there's no Day 1...because I didn't actually go. I have a festival pass, which I mistakenly bought in the summer, thinking I'd take in a ton of shows and that it'd totally be worth it. Wrong. When I looked at the pricing of the shows I actually wanted to see, as well as be able to physically attend, I would've been much better off just buying advance tickets to those performances. But whatever, it's my first HPX, and I'll learn for next year. As for why I didn't go to Day 1, featuring California's Crystal Antlers? Midterms. Yay.

But luckily, I only have about 2.5 days of school a week, and booked all my nights off from work so that I could catch as many shows as possible. Last night, that included stops at both craptastic Toothy Moose and the semi-legendary Paragon Theatre (more legitimately legendary as The Marquee Club, which is what it used to be known and run as). Of course, there were acts playing at other places that I also wanted to see, like the above-pictured Got To Get Got at The Seahorse, but even though the proximity of the venues was convenient, the set times certainly weren't. So my night went as follows:

Hannah Georgas | @ The Toothy Moose: I've heard some of Hannah's stuff both on CBC Radio 3 and on her own myspace page as well. She comes off as held-back and acoustic for the most part...both of which certainly weren't on display last night. She had what I soon found out was Said The Whale's backing band playing with her, so her one-woman act fleshed out into an ensemble featuring the pretty Hannah on guitar, as well as the cutest girl on keyboards, a drummer who looked all of 10 years old, and a pretty nondescript bassist (though they usually are, aren't they?). The overall effect was definitely an upgrade over many of the recordings I'd heard of Georgas'.

She has a great voice off the get-go, and an awesome stage presence, commanding attention and exuding confidence. Last night she was rocking an old-school wolf shirt too, so she either has a great sense of irony and humour...or just looks good in a wolf shirt. The set itself felt just long enough, and Hannah kept my interest throughout, changing up tempos and feelings, from the song she literally said was about "dating an asshole" to her huge closer "All I Need," which had the same kind of feeling for me as, dare I say it, Death Cab For Cutie's stunning rendition of "Transatlanticism" earlier this year. It started off slow and delicate, and seemed an odd choice for a set closer...then it kept building, and building, until it seemed the song was filling up the whole room -- and everyone's hearts. Check it out below, and then imagine it twice as loud and passionate towards the end:

Hannah Georgas - "All I Need"

Just a footnote though about this show and The Toothy Moose in general as a venue: it would be a fine punk venue, with the low stage and boxy design...if it wasn't a freaking country and western bar. The crowd seemed totally at odds with the usual frequenters, and if that wasn't enough, I was forced to recall the great crowds at Osheaga in Montreal this summer. The reason? The one really loaded girl and her semi-drunk girlfriends in front of me. It's fine to go nuts if there's a lot of people and they're all moving and shaking...but sadly, the 'Moose last night was far from that, being nearly-empty and all. You guys were just kinda annoying, and somehow already drunk during the first act.

Said The Whale | @ The Toothy Moose: now this Vancouver band started off the set with an a capella start to "False Creek Change," which sounds like as good of a sea shanty as you could whip up right here in Halifax. They played through a melodic if somewhat forgettable set, and I dunno if that's because I had higher expectations from excitable single "Camilo (The Magician)," or because I simply wasn't that familiar with their stuff. Sadly, I probably remembered them more for their funny quips in between songs, though they definitely did quite a number on "Camilo" as well as "This City's A Mess." The tempo of the show just happened to be all over the place for me though, between a few slow and folksy tunes, and my more-favoured rocking songs.

Said The Whale - "Camilo (The Magician)"

Kestrels | @ The Toothy Moose: I was hoping to settle in by this point and enjoy a rocking show, but unfortunately, things didn't get too much better. The crowd severely thinned out once Said The Whale finished their set, and there was maybe one third of the people left to see Kestrels perform. As their lead singer took the mic and said they had 20 minutes to play and that he'd shut up right after this, you could barely hear him above the chatter in the bar. I felt pretty bad for the guys actually.

The show itself was full of droning, feedback, pedal effects and a general warbling tilt to most of the songs. They actually even kept the droning going in between songs, so it almost seemed like Kestrels played one super-long piece of aggressive post-punk. I'm not sure if it was just the acoustics of the place, or the general malaise of the audience towards them and the corresponding effort by the band, but they weren't anything that impressive. Imagine Japandroids, but like two steps down if you can -- more garage-y, but also more jangly, so a bit of a juxtaposition.

Either in response to the audience, or his own pent-up rage during the set, the lead singer and guitarist randomly smashed his instrument to the ground at one point, only to pick it up unharmed...and heave it at the curtain behind the stage, which was only serving to cover a wall, and which consequently sent gyprock spraying when the head of the guitar stuck in and promptly fell out. Confusing series of events to say the least, especially since Kestrels' music doesn't seem particularly...angry. Below is a track they may have played, but which certainly didn't have the same zeal or earnestness to it last night.

Kestrels - "Sailed On"

Sprengjuhollin | @ The Paragon: don't laugh. That's what they're actually called, and it means something like "exploding palace" in Icelandic. Yes, they're the biggest pop sensation from Iceland, and they were playing last night when I wandered over to The Paragon after Kestrels finished their set. I wasn't greatly impressed by their msypace playlist when I was trying to pick what concert to attend last night, but as I got there, what they were lacking in perceived musical talent, they surely made up for in spunk -- and strangely enough, English. Everyone in the band who spoke last night had very good English, and just the slightest accent. Sure, three out of the five of them looked Icelandic...but you'd never be able to tell from speech alone.

The keyboardist seemed to be the band's spokesman, cracking jokes all night long and even offering free t-shirts to whomever was brave enough to stick their face into the sweaty bassist's stomach (again: don't laugh - four girls ended up doing it, and all got shirts for their effort). Just to backtrack though, I got to the venue in between songs, and in time for the keyboardist to point at a sign another band member was carrying, all to help us sound out their seemingly impossible name. "Spreng-you-hok-lean" was what I derived from the group session, but I'll be damned if anyone but the band said it right during any point of the night.

Among the funnier quips during their set was them implying that Iceland was "just to the East" of Canada, and they were "pretty much one of your provinces." This of course was part of their merch pitch, which also included a frank declaration that "as most of you know, our country, Iceland, went broke last year," which elicited a few laughs from the crowd. All that aside, their music fell somewhere between knee-slapping folk, energized dance-pop, melancholy ballads, alt-country and upbeat rock. Overall, the band was certainly faster-paced than (again) their myspace led me to believe. Some of the lyrics were also in Icelandic, as the band is only now in the process of translating their work into English for more widespread consumption.

Sprengjuhollin had at least two very good songs, and their slight lead singer, a boyish fellow with long sideburns and short-cut hair, delivered the lyrics in an almost-precious manner, seemingly unsure of the English footing of his words. They even got the same sweaty bassist to slow it down for a number, handing him a guitar and the mic for a decent tune. Overall, the band was fun, likable, and probably a group I wouldn't mind seeing again, especially once they flesh out their catalogue a little more.

Sprengjuhollin - "Worry 'Til Spring"

Mates Of State | @ The Paragon: at this point I should probably point out just how spread out and sparse the crowd was at The Paragon. I've been to a handful of shows there, and I have to admit every one of them was probably better-attended than last night's HPX exhibition. There were people from front to back, but they all seemed grouped up and most of them not even interested in the acts onstage. This of course led to an easy-to-reach spot in the second row, centre stage (basically the same place I had at the Toothy Moose), but I couldn't help feeling there could have been more passion flowing through the place as the top two acts were playing.

Either way, after what must've been the lengthiest set-up delay since Crystal Castles ended up in Ottawa instead of Montreal this summer, the married couple better known as Mates Of State came out to their drumset and pair of keyboards and synths. You could see the disinterest in their eyes and body language even as the stage was being arranged for them: husband Jason Hammel came out in a khaki trenchcoat and tucked-in scarf, looking like he was more ready for a shopping trip than playing drums. Wife Kori Gardner seemed no more into it either, even when Jason tried to create some between-song banter with her; she was reduced to saying what - thinking back seems a little meanspirited - "my mother always told me if you have nothing good to say, don't say anything at all."

Here, I have to admit that I read The Coast's review after I did up my own notes, and though I made a point even then of Mates Of State's business-like demeanor and general tiredness, I never really equated those to a displeasure the group must've had towards either the crowd or the city in general. Jason even whipped out his Blackberry as he was tuning up his drums, and I was fully afraid that he'd play the entirety of the show in his trenchcoat and scarf. Of course, that may have been influenced by some pretense I had about the group being from Britain, and possibly a ponderance on my part that the duo may have thought themselves "bigger" than a show at the HPX. That was washed away when I could neither hear an accent from the two, nor any mention of a long trip over here. In reality, they're just a couple from Kansas, possibly weary of a long tour and under-attended venue.

The music though was far from lacklustre. I went in thinking I was gonna get lambasted with over-the-top pop melodies and boy-girl harmonies from two lovebugs crafting old-timey tunes. I was quite wrong. Jason plays a mean drum, pinpoint and severely catchy, and also mixed in much higher than you'd hear a drumset this side of Death From Above 1979. That may be a stretch to compare him to such a hard-driving dance-punk group, but the dude can play, and his drumming went a long way to helping impress Mates Of State's live show upon me. Kori's crafty synth work (creating a palpable atmosphere throughout every song) and equally deft keyboard playing even made up for the lack of guitar. I even found it a fun little game to compare them to the only other husband-wife duo I've seen live: Handsome Furs, at this year's Virgin Festival. Whereas the Furs put wife on drum machine/synth and husband on a wall of distorted guitar, Mates took a different approach with the real drums and fake pianos/synth. Vastly different styles of course, but two neat approaches to coping with not having a full band.

Many of the songs were thumping, superbly catchy, upbeat (notice I love that word/style?), and sometimes downright ecstatic. The onstage presence of the duo was business-like as mentioned, to the point where each one basically knew what to do, talked little in between songs, and just played out the show. The audience probably wasn't helping either, as after four acts and two venues I was literally nodding off at some points, and I wasn't the only one from the number of yawns I saw going around The Paragon. If Mates Of State were tired, we were certainly doing no better. Refreshingly, there was only one really drunk guy I saw, as the crowds tend to be a bit better behaved at The Paragon than at other venues.

The rest of the place could've used a drink though thinking back, as I remember that every time a song ended, you could only hear what seemed like the front quarter of the place clapping. Sing-a-longs were few and far between, as I was standing by ostensibly the only four or five people who knew any of the Mates' material. Even our clapping for the encore resembled a forced gesture, with few whoops if any, and moreso a feeling that we owed it to the band as the headliners to ask for an encore, and they owed it in return to give us one.

I'm basically going out on a limb and saying last night's show was like staying in a relationship that's not working for either person, but you keep riding it out because you know that soon enough, it's gonna be over. I was even so hungry and tired that I felt a little microcosm of that myself: once the show was over, I could swing by McDonald's and then pass out on my bed. Is that the feeling you want during a show, let alone the headliners? I'd probably say no.

Some musical notes though before I finish - because there actually was some music being played while all of this was going on. "My Only Offer" was definitely their showstopper, as they performed a rousing rendition. The rest of the tunes definitely had me questioning the point of even putting songs on a band's myspace page, when they sound so little like that live. I mean, they kinda blew my socks off at some points last night, taking me into the rhythm and melody of the tracks with barely a drum kick and a synth stab. For all their laissez-faire attitude up there, they sure can still bang out the songs when need be.

Mates Of State - "My Only Offer"

My overall lesson from last night? Don't trust myspace; bands some bands are better live than you'd think...while others...not so much.

White Rabbits - Percussion Gun

perfect for magic tricks

It's about time to just go back to some good old-fashioned song-postin' fun. "Percussion Gun" by White Rabbits is something that combines a lot of different styles and a few different sounds that I'm a huge fan of. Much of my indie listening is influenced by what I liked early on tuning in to Indie 103.1, a station around Orange County, California that conveniently pops up on iTunes Radio.

"Percussion Gun" to me screams the kind of indie that station plays cuts of, and even more specifically, it has the local feel of the LA-alt-rock scene: a sound mined by the likes of the Smashing Pumpkins, Silversun Pickups, and even lesser-known groups like Darker My Love. When I heard "Percussion Gun" a few weeks ago, it sounded familiar. Now, I don't know if it's the fact I'd heard it on Indie 103.1 before, or if its LA-centric sound was just that strong.  However, the singer's voice echoes the impassioned and throaty shouts of groups like The Walkmen and The Rapture, groups more associated with the New York scene. Either way, there's a darkish tone to the song that doesn't really get fleshed out - and to pleasing results.

White Rabbits - Percussion Gun

The track could've been a sombre stroll through melancholy, but the steady strum of the bass, the gaudy piano stabs, and the glintzy guitar work jazz up your regular kiss-off tune. Add in the slightest sliver of a backing choir, and "Percussion Gun" really has everything going for it, as well as going on in it. But above all, it's the lead singer's delivery that really grabs the spotlight; he's standoffish without being specifically mean-spirited - even starting the song off with "Feel Good Inc."-reminiscent laughter - and the strains of "and iiiiiiii know/which way you run, you're a child my love/I feel the same" bely a sense of empathy for whomever the track's directed at.

There's a lot going on in this song, and multiple listens only help to understand and appreciate one of the better tunes this year.

The New Pornographers | Top 15 Songs

I feel kinda cheap, because I've only just gotten into The New Pornographers, but I have to say they're already one of my favorite bands ever. I've told many already that out of their 40+ song catalogue, there's only a handful I actually don't like, and their Mass Romantic and Twin Cinema albums are safely nestled in my list of all-time favorites.

Unfortunately, these guys never tour with the full complement of performers, because as a side project and "supergroup," the individual parts are so busy with their own primary musical ventures that they don't have the time to get on the road together. Add that to the fact that they haven't put anything out for two years, and count on the chance they probably won't ever again, I'm pretty bummed that I got in on the phenonmen that is The New Pornographers so late.

All that aside however, there's still room to celebrate the absolute musical genius that is this band. Again, it's very hard for me to attach a genre to their music, because there's bits of folk, rock, pop, twee and damn near everything between that goes into every one of their four musical trips disguised as albums. In a tip of the hat to that, my Top 15 includes at least one song from each of those compilations, and not just out of necessity; The New Pornographers may have had one of the best debut albums ever with Mass Romantic, but the quality surely didn't stop after that, and every album has a slew of hits you can listen to again and again.

Just a couple notes before I get started on the list.

- The band evidently writes all the songs and only then decides who sings the vocals. When you consider that any of these brilliantly-written and eternally-poignant lyrics could have been sung by either the likes of Neko Case, AC Newman or Dan Bejar, it just adds to the happenstance aspect that goes to make The New Pornographers such a pleasant breath of fresh air and innovation.

- The New Pornographers have an astonishing knack for crafting almost perfect gems of songs. Nothing is too short, nothing is too long, and there's rarely ever a lull in a song let alone a full album. It's a shame more groups don't follow their example - but then again, they wouldn't be so special if everyone was as capable as they were.

- I'm not posting links to any of the songs in case I get another one of those annoying crackdowns/post deletes, but the majority should be easily accessible on hypem, and even moreso at your local record store. On to the list:

15. | "All For Swinging You Around" | Electric Version | With all the above being said, I do list Electric Version as my least favorite of the four NP albums. I don't know why that is, but they just didn't showcase all the same things on Electric Version that made me fall in love with their unique brand of music on the other three releases. That's not to say there isn't still good music; there most certainly is, and "All For Swinging You Around" is one of those highlights. Neko Case's voice is (as usual) put to good use, and the song starts with a flourish reminiscent of The Weakerthans' more upbeat numbers. A stranger track in that the chorus is where the music actually lets up a bit and gives you a rest to digest what's going on, but no less a great song.

14. | "My Rights Versus Yours" | Challengers | Challengers overall for me was a bit of a slower album, and a little more mature-sounding, so "My Rights Versus Yours" reflects that a little bit. As opposed to the previous tune, this one begins slowly and builds with the chugging guitar going at it bit-by-bit, the "oohs" picking up in the background, and Neko joining in to sing with who I think is AC Newman (I say that because I'm pretty sure Dan Bejar's voice is a little weirder - a bit nuanced and even lispy). There's a yearning to "My Rights Versus Yours" and almost a melancholy that's not there with the more excited-sounding Pornographers' tunes.

13. | "The Body Says No" | Mass Romantic | Part of this entire list, let alone the order I'm placing these songs in, is a bit haphazard. It's hard to say which of The New Pornographers' songs are really that much better than any of the others, so in going through my iTunes library, I picked the titles I knew I loved the most, and then threw them into a playlist of their own. I'm pretty sure I know what the top of the list is going to come out like, but in a testament to the overall quality of their work, "The Body Says No" could easily be in someone else's Top 5. It's insanely catchy (I've went entire days repeating "man, can you beliiiiieve?/that she didn't need meeee/any more than I, needed her too?"), inexplicably meshing given all of its differing instrumentation, and as up-and-down of a journey as the band can give you.

12. | "Sing Me Spanish Techno" | Twin Cinema | Never judge a song by its title. Even though the Pornographers are one of the very few "indie" bands that actually titles their songs based on actual lyrics in the songs (I'm looking at you Fall Out Boy/Panic At The Disco), I thought this track would be an exception. Go figure, it's not, and as one of the myriad hooks in "Sing Me Spanish Techno," it strangely works. In reference to those hooks though, there's everything from "listening too long/to one song" to the guitar itself providing rhythms that just latch onto your brain and won't let go. An easy example of how the group can craft something so likeable out of something so seemingly benign.

11. | "Challengers" | Challengers | One of the more restrained NP songs out there, Neko Case puts on probably her most underrated performance as a member of the group. Whereas she's usually yelping and eccentric (all in a good and likeable way of course), "Challengers" provides her with a chance to flex the more mellow pipes she went on to showcase in this year's acclaimed Middle Cyclone, her most recent solo effort. "Nah-nah-nah"s and "oohs" abound here, and the track is stripped down to a bit of guitar and an uncharacteristic lack of percussion, but the vocals more than make up for that void. It's heartfelt, and would've been the perfect album-ending number had they chosen to place it as such. Not just for Challengers, but if you listen closely enough, maybe even The New Pornographers career together as well.

10. | "The Fake Headlines" | Mass Romantic | As probably the third New Pornographers song I'd ever heard, I was suprised at how much this song spoke to me. And as one of the few in their catalogue with a false ending, it wasn't just the words themselves that appealed to me. As the shortest of these 15 tunes at 2:46, it does leave you wanting a little bit more - not desiring a little more, because its satiating enough - meaning you wouldn't mind it going a little longer. It's straightforward while still giving off the heartfelt vibe of someone left to linger in their sorrow. Though instead of wallowing in that sorrow, he decides to write "the catchiest words I could find." If only every break-up sounded so good.

9. | "Mutiny, I Promise You" | Challengers | This on the other hand was one of the first two songs I'd heard by NP - I can't say definitively which was the actual first one, but this could've been it. Though the rest of the song may not be quite as engaging as that chorus, the echoing going on once the latter hits makes me reminisce about elementary music class, and the guitar blasting away back there is as good as any modern rock song's. When it slows down for a moment around the 2:30 mark, it comes back and hits you at full-steam within a matter of seconds, and reprises itself with a new vigour. Though the lyrics may be a tad on the ridiculous side, it's certainly more fun to decipher into your own meaning than other more sparsely worded odes to abstraction.

8. | "All The Old Showstoppers" | Challengers | For as much as I didn't think I liked Challengers in context with the other NP albums, it's got just as many tracks on here as Twin Cinema - but that may be because it wouldn't make sense to create a Top 15 of just Twin Cinema and Mass Romantic tracks (just kidding, it's all great). There's a rustic quality to "All The Old Showstoppers" that harkens back to a traveling band at a country fair (maybe it's that jangling guitar), seemingly only lacking someone playing that classic jug. Though there's persevering reference to "numbers" throughout, there's everything else from princesses to paupers to grab your attention and make for a fun little jaunt through that yearly tri-country affair.

7. | "The Laws Have Changed" | Electric Version | As much as I love Neko Case and her otherworldy vocals, a surprising number of songs on my Top 15 don't feature her predominantly. I guess that speaks to the great balance of The New Pornographers, and proves that they're so multi-faceted that it doesn't really matter who's singing those lyrics, as mentioned at the outset of this list. Neko and AC split the duties on this one to my knowledge, and do a swimming job of it. Not only that, but AC's vocals seem to be drowned a bit, while Neko's are presented naked and without filter, a further testament to the myriad ways in which NP can present their perfectly crafted musical pieces.

6. | "Twin Cinema" | Twin Cinema | The title track does well to set the mood for a great NP album, all in a concise 2:59. The pitchy guitar right off the bat, the louder-than-usual percussion, and impassioned vocals all make their debut, laying down a tone that's carried out well throughout the rest of the compilation. There's a rare breakdown just about halfway through, where the singing and instruments both slow it down a tad, but don't let that fool you - they're right back at it in a minute, setting the table perfectly for probably the most critically acclaimed album offering from The New Pornographers.

5. | "The Bleeding Heart Show" | Twin Cinema | This is where it starts to get really hard, and the order starts to matter that much more. "The Bleeding Heart Show" hints strongly at how Challengers ended up being mood-wise, but it was a departure at that time for Twin Cinema I'd say. It's got a bit of that heartstring-tugging feeling that's so prominent on NP's final album, but which isn't really there on the more upbeat and outright fun Twin Cinema. Then at exactly 2:40 in, the whole song switches it up on you, and comes around with the most damned triumphant showing from not only The New Pornographers, but possibly any song within the last 10 years (since everyone seems to fond of doing those decade-ending lists right about now). It's no wonder the University of Phoenix uses "The Bleeding Heart Show" in their ads; I'd go to university in freakin' Chechnya if they blasted this song on campus every morning. For as much as I may have written, you really just have to hear this one. It's uplifting, moving, and everything you'd be pleasantly suprised to find out The New Pornographers are too.

4. | "Slow Descent Into Alcoholism" | Mass Romantic | It's quirky, it's fast-paced, it's about drinking. I could just finish this particular review with that singular blurb, but it deserves so much more. The vocals are dragged out in the catchiest of ways, there's the triad of choruses that NP does so well, I'm pretty sure there's some brass involved, and the harmony between the male and female singing is an underrated aspect that makes this ditty one of my favorite. Around 2:40 (again?) the song takes on a bit of a different flair, but this time becomes only more fervent and the instrumentation that much crunchier, before it stops for a split-second and proceeds to blow up in your ears. The vocals start to lean to the visceral side, and then it's over just as quick with a few "uh-huh"s. Uh-huh indeed.

3. | "Mass Romantic" | Mass Romantic | Who does great title tracks? The New Pornographers obviously do. "Mass Romantic" is like the mission statement for their careers. It's a bit unconventional, it's unmistakably Neko Case, the lyrics are as non-sensical and fun as they get, and the instruments are banged out in a garage band-ish way The Strokes popularized around the same time, albeit in a decidedly more lacksadasical and lo-fi way. "Mass Romantic" is bursting with exhuberance, and if there's any better track to get you in the mood for a good listening session with one of Canada's best supergroups (we do tend to have a lot), there may not be a better place to start than their first - discographically speaking that is.

2. | "Use It" | Twin Cinema | I lied earlier. "Use It" is in fact the first New Pornographers I remember hearing. As the theme song for the first few seasons of CBC Televison's The Hour pop culture show, I'd been unwittingly listening to one of the band's best tracks night in and night out, rapt by the feverish drumming, poignant piano and ever-so-distinct guitar. When "use it toniiii-iiii-iiiight" closed out the show's intro, little did I know just how great the rest of NP's songs were - I just knew that that song was some damn catchy. Unfortunately, I never really acted on those feelings until this summer, but I can say without hesitation that I was incredibly dumb to wait this long. Even when a friend played NP's stuff for me last summer, I kept going back to "Use It" over and over again. I think back then I thought they were almost too diverse and "all over the place" for me, but as my tastes have solidified a bit, and my thirst for Canadian music increased, I've had the hindsight to dive into a great catalogue that features "Use It" as one of its best tracks. By the way - any song that states "two sips from the cup of human kindness/and I'm shitfaced" in a totally un-ironic way, definitely has my stamp of approval.

1. | "Letter From An Occupant" | Mass Romantic | A brief riff, and you jump right into possibly the best Neko Case vocal performance ever. She has a brilliantly unique voice and delivery, and nowhere is it showcased any better than on "Letter From An Occupant." There's a shrill and campy quality to it that would make most other artists cringe to reach, let alone showcasing it on a song so well-crafted as this. I'm sure many listeners may even cringe at the quirkiness of Neko's voice here, but for anyone who truly likes her or any of the Pornographer's work, "Letter From An Occupant" has to be the epitome of the band firing on all cylinders. There's a bubbling guitar line through the break of the song, pinpoint drumming throughout, and even the infrequent and faint exclamations you can hear in the background sound so authentic you'd think it was those in the studio at the time whooping at how well the whole piece coalesces. There's virtually no weak points, and I'll be damned if this tune doesn't stick in your head for more than a day or two. As the best New Pornographers tune, you should expect no less.

Arkells - Jackson Square album review

First things first. I'm breaking down this album old-school: track by track. Secondly, to give a bit of perspective on the band, I always tell people that Arkells sound like The Trews...if The Trews were better. Basically, they take all that catchy, in-your-face, two-guitar, bass, drums and keyboard assault, and subtract all the cock-rock and dumb lyrics. The final product ends up being a really pleasing and almost cathartic experience in modern "indie rock" music.

These guys have been playing shows all over Canada recently, and it's only a matter of time before they blow up on the national scene. Their live shows are packed with energy, and they play great sets full of songs off Jackson Square, along with some improvisations and crowd-involving gimmicks that just add to the fun that accompanies catching these guys in concert. On to the album though:

"Deadlines" | As inauspicious of an album-starter as you could pick. The slow drumming build-up, a few crashes, all the instruments coming in, and then Max's voice giving a little intro of what it's like to work the corporate life. This song actually sets the theme pretty well for the album, as it's a very working-class band putting together a very working-class album. "Deadlines" is fast and short, but if it doesn't pump you up for the rest of the album, you might want to check your pulse.

"Pullin' Punches" | This one picks up right where "Deadlines" trails off, albeit with a much happier tilt. "Pullin' Punches" is a bit of a heartfelt rocker, a little ode to that truthful girl in your life, with a hint of sympathy in there for all she's been through. There's a few good break-downs of the song, a lot of pacing changes, and a sense of urgency throughout - which sums up Arkells pretty well in fact. This is a group that performs with a sense of urgency, like they know the spotlight could fade any minute, and they make the best of it while they can. Of course, that could also be because the last time I saw them, they only had a half-hour to belt out their set...

"Oh, The Boss Is Coming" | OTBIC veers off a darker road, but keeps that same fast pace and worker's mentality set out before it. This song is probably lead singer Max Kerman's most impassioned vocal performance, with his yelps and throaty singing conveying perfectly the very literal anxiousness of an office worker who's probably not up to much, and is constantly looking over their shoulder to make sure the boss isn't catching them doing so. OTBIC is one Arkells have taken and extended a bit live, with Max leading a neat call-and-response with the audience during the "punching in/punching out" lines.

"Ballad of Hugo Chavez" | I may have mentioned "Ballad" on here before, but it's certainly one of the stand-out tracks on Jackson Square. Arkells aren't one of those groups that put obscure names to their songs for art's sake; this is quite literally a lyrical re-telling of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez's trials and tribulations preceding his rise to power...all told over the scat of a saxophone and pop-y piano chords. Again, I'm a sucker for piano, so this song can do no wrong by me - and between the "hey hey hey!"s and "in the niii-iiight/of the sun"s that establish the catchiest chorus these guys have, I don't see how it ever could.

"Tragic Flaw" | It's a debut album, so there's gonna be some filler in Jackson Square, but thankfully, they built the album so that it comes in after four rousing jams. Some people might like this song a little more than I do, but it just doesn't do anything for me. It's a bit of a downer in some parts, but what it does the worst is pander to a lot of what's out there already on the radio, in terms of Canadian rock groups who are trying just a tad too hard to make it. It still has some of the signature Arkells melodies, but it's certainly nothing special.

"No Champagne Socialist" | Still continuing the worker trend of the album, NCS starts with a great harmonica blast, and then slows down for Max to set the scene: "let the record show, it's 1964/in the city of New York." Another sympathetic song, but this time for the guy trying to live on "both sides of the track" - a well-to-do Jewish kid who doesn't want the same life his family's had for so long. You'd think the subject matter would certainly curtail the tune from being played at concerts with any amount of success, but between the impassioned harmonica playing, the well-done southern rock (these guys know their rock, and don't just stick to one kind of it), and the awesome guitar solo closing the song out, "No Champagne Socialist" is kind of Arkells' ace in the hole.

"Abigail" | I guess this is how a rock ballad like "Tragic Flaw" should've been done. Which is really saying something for Arkells - they may make mistakes as a young group, but within the span of one song, they've already corrected it. The instrumentality of all their tunes really keeps them going, even when the lyrics are busy painting a story or telling a cautionary tale. "Abigail" tinges with sorrow for a girl who doesn't quite understand why the guy in her life does the things he does, and may be feeling a little lost, as evidenced by "where did all the good plans go?" Add to the mix a bit of a heartstring-tugging go at the guitar, and Arkells save yet another sappy tune from coming off all too emo and self-pleasing. I can't really recall them playing "Abigail" live, but they certainly have the tools to turn it into something concert-worthy, even in its present form.

"Heart Of The City" | Probably not one of my favorite tracks off Jackson Square. A little too earnest and lyrically stuttering for my liking. It also veers off the path the rest of the album sets out, meaning it's a bit abstract and doesn't really follow the story-telling/workforce/down-trodden girl routine the rest of the album touts. "Heart Of The City" wouldn't be so bad if I actually knew what singer Max Kerman's trying to get at in the big picture, and also if the rest of the band was able to elevate the song to the level something with this kind of title deserves.

"I'm Not The Sun" | These few songs right here point out I guess, the, uh, "Tragic Flaw" of Jackson Square (sorry). Whereas most albums would just be hitting their stride around the mid-point, it becomes clear right about here that Arkells did that with the first half of the album, and sadly the second half suffers for that. "I'm Not The Sun" is too much of a slow-burner, coming down to a level even Kings Of Leon on painkillers might feel is a tad too lethargic. For anyone familiar with Only By The Night, this is Arkells' version of "Closer" or "Cold Desert," those largely instrumental and emotive jaunts into territory best reserved for groups who know how to do that better (think Coldplay). Otherwise, KoL and Arkells should just stick to the straightforward rock that got them to where they are in the first place.

"The Choir" | By this point, it's like they're slapping you in the face. You were really pumped up by the first half of the album, waiting to see where these rising stars were going to take it next...then they slow it down for "I'm Not The Sun" and keep it at that pace yet again. Max just sounds sad and forlorn here, and the track really only moves in fits and bursts. The sappy-sounding chorus is a zone Arkells should stay out of, and the church-and-death tinged lyrics don't do them much justice either. There may be great intention behind this song, but the execution is sadly lacking.

"John Lennon" | Just as it's all becoming a bit too much to bear, one of my favorite tracks of 2009 shows up to save the album. Like a lot of the songs I like the most, it's sometimes hard to put into words what it is that makes me love it so much. There's a bit of saxophone jumping in and adding the right amount of diversity, there's the rousing "I'm John Lennon/in '67" chorus, the persistent keyboard stabs, the pick-it-up-and-rock-it-out interludes, the slow-it-down "I'm so lost...and I live just around the corner!" right before the chorus, and the side-to-side sway of the band during the chorus itself. "John Lennon" is full of everything that's right about Arkells, and has the most diverse presentation of their skills on Jackson Square. In concert, the false ending is that much better, the actual ending is the high point of their shows, and Max looks like he's possibly having the most fun of anyone up there relaying the story of a drunken night on the town.

"Blueprint" | This along with "John Lennon" really dispells the bad taste in your mouth coming from the middle third of the album. Again, I don't think they play it live (probably because the sax is featured a little more prominently here, and they don't tour with a sax player) but there's no reason they couldn't. The stadium-rock ready chorus of "No I ain't/gonna fear/the new year!" and the chugging band behind Max make for a most optimistic end to a great debut album. With the catchy choruses, great musicianship, and attention-grabbing concerts they have going for them, Arkells certainly have no reason to fear anything, let alone a new year for the boys to prove themselves to rock fans all over Canada.

Arkells on MySpace

Jackson Square on Amazon

Upcoming Reviews

...hopefully, because I know I'll be listening to them. It's just a matter of writing up my thoughts.

Sunset Rubdown - Dragonslayer

The Most Serene Republic - ...And The Ever Expanding Universe

Arkells - Jackson Square

...and possibly Handsome Furs' debut release, Plague Park. But only as a reference point and in the context of my review of Face Control.

Handsome Furs - "Face Control" review

yes, that's a real, purchased CD...whoa

This review starts with HMV. If you ever want some music, but don't actually want to find it and buy it, it's your kinda store. I went in looking for Japandroids a couple months ago, and after two or three trips plus a couple phone calls, all I ever heard was that the store had the vinyl of Post Nothing, but not the CD. I dunno who was stupider, the guys there who never knew/never told me the band was never going to put out a CD, or me for only bothering to find that fact out a few weeks after my search started.

Needless to say, when I went looking for Face Control, they didn't have it. Kudos to them for ordering it in for me quite promptly, but still, the multiple trips isn't what I look for when I'm buying music.

That aside, the real impetus for buying this album was Handsome Furs' great performance at Virgin Fest in Halifax earlier this month. After quickly browsing Pitchfork's review, I decided it was worth it to buy the album and check it out myself. The packaging was of course neat, if the CD itself wasn't a little hard to locate and slide from its delicate pouch (which valuably had the tracklist printed on it...creative, but not necessarily logical). So I popped it in and listened to it on my long-ish commute home. This was last week, and between my desire to review the album over the last few days and the unforeseen dead battery of my mp3 player this morning, I think I got four or five listens to thing in that time.

What I can draw from all of it is that perspective has a lot to do with things. Albums themselves are alot like singles really, in that sometimes you'll hear something and go "whoa, I need that, that's awesome" and just put it on repeat for days. Other times, you'll know right away something isn't to your taste, and you probably won't give it another chance.

To be honest, my first listen to Face Control had me fall somewhere right in the middle. The duo (of Wolf Parade's Dan Boeckner and his [very hot {buy the CD for the liner's topless pics...I'm serious}] wife Alexei Perry) really know how to market themselves, because other than their earlier work and their great live show, I really only knew two singles off the album, and one of them was much better for me than the other. So kudos to them as well, for enticing me to dish out $22 for 12 songs-worth of album on the strength of two songs and a concert.

By now, I know this review might be a little like "Cannot Get. Started" off HF's debut album Plague Park. My apologies, so I'll get to it. The album has grown on me more every listen. I've picked up on little nuances, and I've also come to realize that sometimes an album that has a lot of the same sound isn't always all it's cracked up to be. The first listen, I couldn't even distinguish when one song started and the other began. All the same distorted and droning guitar, slaps, drum machines...they all just flowed together, with nothing markedly standing out from the rest. This is strangely an album where it doesn't pay to listen to it back to front, the way most LP's are supposed to be structured.

So I threw the thing on shuffle today. And lo and behold, the album had a completely different sound. There was some variety, and it wasn't all just one melting pot of songs. There's still the same structure for about 10 of the songs (intro, verse, verse, solo, verse) but you can start to pick out the differences when the tracks are out of order. To go back to my first point about an album being like a song, it really is that strange macrocosm. You look for that nice slow intro, a few good songs to pick it up, that middle section that really establishes the album, maybe a little lull or some weaker tunes, a song or two that hits it out of the park, and maybe a slow finish to wind you down. I can't help thinking of a batting order in a baseball game in terms of setting the table in that same way.

And I looked for that with this album. That middle section is definitely there with lead singles "All We Want Baby, Is Everything" and "I'm Confused," and the other elements are there in bits and pieces, but there's really not that variety in sound and even soundscapes that you expect other albums to have. Even when someone like Joel Plaskett does a concept album, there's still a lot of variance between tracks. Maybe it's the fact there's only so much two people can do with the music, but I found Japandroid's twosome to be varied enough in it's rhythms and song structures to keep me rapt from front to back on their release. At some points I know I definitely yearned for Handsome Furs to add a real drummer and see where it could go, but no chance of that realistically happening.

Boeckner's voice is as yappy as the dog on the album cover, and the pain in his voice is palpatable when he yelps out his lyrics. There's definitely some duplication and filtering going on, but it's not over the top and it doesn't really hurt the delivery at all. It seems hidden under the rest of the music, but the simplicity of his lyrics still manages to help them shine through. Another aspect I found, that's quite hard to put into words, is that the music seems very closed in.

I mean, don't get me wrong, the band's a hell of a live show, but it's like they recorded the album in a little box, with all the sounds bouncing off of each other, and that constant drone in the background. Again, it's not a knock on it, because I love that kind of music, but for 12 songs, it can get kind of monotonous. You get the feeling you just want one of the songs to explode, Dan's voice to rise above everything, the drum slaps to crash down, and for the band to deliver some knockout punch that never seems to come. "All We Want..." comes closest to fulfilling that promise, and it's apt to be firmly entrenched in your head with it's shrill synth and talks of building a heaven...but you can't help but feeling there's that next level the duo could reach.

Many of the songs overall have a really diverse feel to them. "Officer of Hearts" seems like it could've been the featured beat on a mid-90's West Coast gangsta-rap album, while a lot of the other tunes have feelings of country, dance and Dinosaur, Jr.-flecked noise rock - sometimes all at once. I was quick to describe their live show as a band combining equal dashes of dancefloor-ready synth and drum machine with distorted indie rock, but without those huge speakers and Alexei's spirited interpretation of her cold and metallic instruments, those sounds seem a little lost on the album itself.

Now this probably comes off as a pretty hard review overall, but that's not to say there aren't highlights. At least half the songs have a good mix of shout-along verses, rousing breaks and grooving beats. There's a harpsichord-ing instrumental jaunt on the quite-short "(White City)." Tunes like "Evangeline" and "Thy Will Be Done" will make you beg for more in-your-face Handsome Furs, and "Talking Hotel Arbat Blues," funky name aside, has to be the most fun on the whole album, from the chugging backbeat to the perfectly messed-up stadium-ready guitar. "Nyet Spasiba" is another one I would've liked to see the duo build on through the album, with some real excitement brewing during the track. Handsome Furs certainly have pop sensibility, and they're all the better for it when they decide to employ it.

Maybe it comes back to perspective again. I have to catch up on my Wolf Parade, so I'm not sure if this marks a sharp detour from Dan's work with that critically-acclaimed and well-loved group, but I'm not sure if he's breaking new ground here. I'd love it if Handsome Furs could step out of their comfort zone, experiment a bit, and churn out something unexpected. Nothing really jars you out of the dark and heavy haze of the overbearing percussion of the album. A guitar stab here and there is about all you get.

Who knows, maybe this is experimental and different for some people. It just isn't that way for me though. With all that said however, I still love Handsome Furs, can't wait to see them in concert again, and look forward to their next album. Now excuse while I go find that album liner...