Tim Baker, lead singer for Hey Rosetta!, has explained the name of their current album, Seeds, by saying that "the songs are seeds ... they’re these little things –- four and five minute things — but they have the ability to grow in your brain and be far more meaningful than just what they are", and I think that's a perfect assessment of the album. When I first started listening to it I wanted to say that the songs were haunting, but that's not really accurate – they don't have the mournful, melancholy edge that one would associate with a haunting. The 'seed' metaphor works as well because it's organic, and the music on Seeds is as well, each song fitting into a larger whole than just existing on its own.
I felt that Hey Rosetta!'s last album, the also-Polaris-shortlisted Into Your Arms, was about an immature band in the process of self-discovery; Seeds, in contrast, finds Hey Rosetta! having become much more mature and sure of themselves – sure enough that they've developed a more playful edge to their music. This is something displayed in the reggaesque beat of several songs, such as in the punningly named "New Sum (Nous Sommes)", or the outtake of laughter crossed with what sounded like a handsaw impression (?) at the end of "Parson Brown". It's an interesting contrast to the fairly structured, somewhat traditional instrumentation on display throughout the album. That play within structure helps strengthen the album, I found – you know it's neither going to become stilted or fall apart from self-indulgence.
Of course, instrumentation and self-discovery will only take you so far; if a band wants to win me over they need a strong lyrical presence, and it's here that Hey Rosetta! shines, with Baker crafting his lines in a thoughtful, measured way. In the hands of a lesser writer, subject material like new fatherhood and the intricate balance between fear and trust could come across as cliched or trite, but Baker manages to make them seem familiar and relatable, and brings them to the table without any judgment or trying to provide any unique insight. Doing it in this way allows the listener to develop their own conclusions about those subjects, which creates deeper roots for those subjects than a more didactic approach would. I mentioned that Hey Rosetta! comes across as very mature throughout the album, and this approach of guiding the listener and trusting them to make their own connections and conclusions is a reflection of that maturity.
Standout tracks: Young Glass, Welcome, New Sum (Nous Sommes)
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Dave's Hey Rosetta Review
Hey Rosetta have quickly become one of this country’s best bands – well I guess they were always that good, but now they are being recognized for it. And rightfully so. They are really really talented in everyway a band should be – songwriting, production, and performance is all top shelf. I would argue, not in this space, but somewhere else, that with the Tragically Hip being the quintessential Canadian band, Hey Rosetta is ready to grasp that mantle for the next generation – with the Hip’s permission of course.
Their sophomore album (and second Polaris nomination) SEEDS provides something that not a lot of albums provide today – familiarity. I don’t mean that in a sense of comfort or sounding like other artists out there, but the themes of SEEDS are familiar. Family, traveling, movement and evolution – these are what we (well at least me) as listeners are dealing with in spades in our own worlds, and SEEDS provides a perspective that proves we aren’t alone in our own thoughts – which is what we all want anyway right? Right?
From the moment the album starts with the title track you are drawn in to movement and progress of the album – it’s contagious. Similarly to the band’s debut INTO YOUR LUNGS the first song paints a picture that sets a tone for the rest of the album. “and we don't look back, cause we don't need that
and we're going too fast, and we don't want to, don't want to
crash” Exactly – and that is what the band does on this album – never looks back. The way it should be, all left behind as they move forward and evolve.
KEY TRACKS: Seeds, Young Glass, Seventeen, Bandages, Bricks
CLINCHER: Welcome (maybe single of the year)
Their sophomore album (and second Polaris nomination) SEEDS provides something that not a lot of albums provide today – familiarity. I don’t mean that in a sense of comfort or sounding like other artists out there, but the themes of SEEDS are familiar. Family, traveling, movement and evolution – these are what we (well at least me) as listeners are dealing with in spades in our own worlds, and SEEDS provides a perspective that proves we aren’t alone in our own thoughts – which is what we all want anyway right? Right?
From the moment the album starts with the title track you are drawn in to movement and progress of the album – it’s contagious. Similarly to the band’s debut INTO YOUR LUNGS the first song paints a picture that sets a tone for the rest of the album. “and we don't look back, cause we don't need that
and we're going too fast, and we don't want to, don't want to
crash” Exactly – and that is what the band does on this album – never looks back. The way it should be, all left behind as they move forward and evolve.
KEY TRACKS: Seeds, Young Glass, Seventeen, Bandages, Bricks
CLINCHER: Welcome (maybe single of the year)
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Gary's Hey Rosetta Review
It seems like the more I enjoy an album the harder it is to dissect its meaning. The better the music the less inclined I am to want to find deeper meaning, pull back the layers and guess at what the band "really" meant.
Luckily, with Hey Rosetta's Seeds, the meaning just sort of presents itself - blossoms if you will (first and last flower/seed reference). It might sound like the quintessential "band on the road" album (a very typical subject for sophomore albums). But it also seems to explore the idea of family and heritage too. So which is it?
The album's first lines - "the road bends long, like mother's arms" - don't clear anything up, but more on that later.
What those opening lines do is set up an emotional and hard hitting song that evolves from a subtle, strumming mandolin into a full fledged sonic assault. Lead singer Tim Baker's melodic wale explodes into the chorus, demanding you take notice.
And that's just the first song.
The albums that follows is equally impressive, whether the band is executing a seamless shuffle like 'Yer Spring' or bouncing nimbly through 'New Sum (Nous Sommes)'. But if you had only been casually listening to this point, 'Welcome' is when you’ll stop and take notice.
Erupting from a subdued instrumental piece (that sounds like a muted dinner party) comes the tale of a first-time father apologising to his newborn child for the trying times that lie ahead. The story is touching (and relate-able as a newish father) but the enormous song wrapped around it makes 'Welcome' 10 times more emotional.
Two years ago we reviewed Hey Rosetta's first album and unanimously agreed this was a band on the verge of something bigger. They were all potential and raw talent waiting to be realized.
Seeds is that in spades. The band has hyper-focused their talent and potential to create an album that showcases a cohesive, confident group of musicians. And yes, it's a more mature band, and a band coming into their own, but they retain all of the immediacy and intensity that got them added to the 2009 Polaris Shortlist two years ago.
The fact that two albums in and they've already been recognized with two Polaris shortlist nominations should tell you everything you need to know (no pressure for album number three guys).
So is this an album about a touring band or families, new and old? Frankly it could be about both, but fundamentally it feels more about travelling forward into something completely unknown. Whether barreling down the road or coming into the world brand new, Seeds sounds like a soundtrack to the journeys we’re all forced to take.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Ryan's Arcade Fire Review
Growing up in the suburbs puts you in an interesting place socially, especially if you're the sort of person who has interests that lie outside the mainstream. You spend a lot of time around people who don't understand the things you like, be they music, independent cinema, underground comics, or whatever. So you find your nearest downtown and start spending time there, visiting places were people gel with what you're into. A lot of those people, though, have nothing but disdain for the suburbs and the type of lives they think suburbanites have, so there's a new barrier erected between yourself and the culture you want to be part of. At least, that was always my experience with suburban life.
I don't know how much of that experience applies to The Arcade Fire, but I do think that it's an important context to have when listening to this album; that feeling - of being in a scene, but not fully of it, of eternally being an outsider - permeates every aspect and every track of The Suburbs. That feeling of rootlessness, of wanting so badly to belong to something cool - it's a bit cliche to say it, but when Win Butler sings thinks like "There's nothing to do/But I don't mind when I'm with you", I feel like I didn't so much listen to this album as I lived it, and even on my first listen it felt as familiar as the corner stores and the mazes of residential courts, lanes, and drives that I wandered as a kid. I wouldn't quite call it a celebration of suburban life, but it is an understanding of it that you don't often find in much of modern music.
These themes - of being rootless, or being an outsider - are especially resonant for The Arcade Fire in 2011, because they've had a lot of success, but it seems to me that that success has only served to entrench their status as outsiders. They did win a Grammy, after all, and a Juno to go with it, and in doing so were immediately thrust into the spotlight of the mainstream; at the same time, though, they're still on an independent label, and that 'indie spirit', for lack of a better term, so they don't seem to fit with most of what's in the mainstream. At the same time, that success has come with a cost - I've seen the term 'sell-out' thrown out about this band in a completely unjustifiable manner, and a few blogs and tweets that have wondered if The Arcade Fire is too big for the Polaris Prize (which is a nonsensical comment, but I digress). Music made by outsiders, about being an outsider, that just drives them further outside - there's a poetry to that that parallels the music of The Suburbs nicely.
Standout tracks: Ready To Start, Modern Man, Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
I don't know how much of that experience applies to The Arcade Fire, but I do think that it's an important context to have when listening to this album; that feeling - of being in a scene, but not fully of it, of eternally being an outsider - permeates every aspect and every track of The Suburbs. That feeling of rootlessness, of wanting so badly to belong to something cool - it's a bit cliche to say it, but when Win Butler sings thinks like "There's nothing to do/But I don't mind when I'm with you", I feel like I didn't so much listen to this album as I lived it, and even on my first listen it felt as familiar as the corner stores and the mazes of residential courts, lanes, and drives that I wandered as a kid. I wouldn't quite call it a celebration of suburban life, but it is an understanding of it that you don't often find in much of modern music.
These themes - of being rootless, or being an outsider - are especially resonant for The Arcade Fire in 2011, because they've had a lot of success, but it seems to me that that success has only served to entrench their status as outsiders. They did win a Grammy, after all, and a Juno to go with it, and in doing so were immediately thrust into the spotlight of the mainstream; at the same time, though, they're still on an independent label, and that 'indie spirit', for lack of a better term, so they don't seem to fit with most of what's in the mainstream. At the same time, that success has come with a cost - I've seen the term 'sell-out' thrown out about this band in a completely unjustifiable manner, and a few blogs and tweets that have wondered if The Arcade Fire is too big for the Polaris Prize (which is a nonsensical comment, but I digress). Music made by outsiders, about being an outsider, that just drives them further outside - there's a poetry to that that parallels the music of The Suburbs nicely.
Standout tracks: Ready To Start, Modern Man, Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Dave's Arcade Fire Review
The Arcade Fire we’re able to put lightening in a bottle with The Suburbs.
The Suburbs is more than a successful album that has sky rocketed a band from ‘popular’ to other worldly music stars - at the end of the day The Suburbs is a masterpiece - pure and simple, it will be remembered as such, but will it win the Polaris Prize this year?
That’s a tough question to answer. If this was any other competition we would just announce it as the winner and be done with it. But this is music, subjective and emotional as being technical and structured – so there is no clear right or wrong, winner or loser. There is only a consensus. We’ll see where out judges take us this year.
When I first listened to The Suburbs I was stopped in my tracks at how well crafted it was, how much care had gone into production, artwork, songwriting and the mix. It all seemed so deliberate – but not in a ‘too cool’ for school’ way, in a completely accessible way. The themes that play out within the songs drip with angst and love for a youth we all once lived, and sometimes miss.
It’s hard for me to talk about individual songs, because the whole album resonates so well from top to bottom with me and my experiences in suburbia. As a product of the suburbs myself, when this album is on, I’m taken back to memories of my youth (both fond and hurtful) – driving around in my mother’s car, tunes cranked, dreams of somewhere else, a better time (if one could exist).
Little did I know that 14 years after leaving the comfort of my parent’s Mississauga home I’d find the soundtrack to motivate me to actually leave. I’m sure for lots of us now in adulthood we wished The Suburbs was around to push us out and into the future. At least we have it now, to provide an emotional landscape to look back.
KEY TRACKS: The Suburbs, Rocco, City With No Children, Month of May,
CLINCHER: We Used To Wait.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Gary's Arcade Fire Review
It’s amazing what a little time and perspective can do to change your attitude and help you remember things in a slightly different way. Maybe even romanticize it a little.
The way you can hold on to a memory for so long that you wonder whether you’ve invented more of it than you experienced, or if it even happened at all. Does it really even matter?
At it's core that’s what The Suburbs is all about. Remembering something the way you choose to - warts and all - with a fondness and sincerity. And coincidentally it also parallels my heartfelt reunion with Arcade Fire after a lengthy disagreement (granted Arcade Fire may have no notion we were fighting).
Let me back track.
After such a strong debut (Funeral), I thought 2007’s Neon Bible was the sort of pretentious art project that so many big bands seem to indulge in. It was bloated, and angry and devoid of fun. Had all the members been dancing around in French Revolution garb the douchery would have been too epic too even consider!
Moving along....
Fast forward some 4 years later and Arcade Fire has not only proven they can return from that dark place but with the kind of gusto and class that has forced people to take notice.
From its ragtime-piano intro, The Suburbs unfurls the story of a summer spent wasting time as a teenager in the burbs. Learning to drive, going to the mall, listening to music, but at the same time dealing with notion that maybe you’re outgrowing all of it. As a kid raised in the 'burbs a lot of this feels and sounds as familiar as my own memories.
There’s an amazing story that may or may not be based in fact (Butler cited his days growing up in the suburbs of Houston, Texas), and according to Spike Jonze may or may not include some kind of pseudo-apocalyptic suburban war (Suburban War, City With No Children). But all of it aside, the album stands on its own - narrative or not.
There’s an embarrassment of riches to go through. Song after song of that uniquely crafted Arcade Fire sound, that ebbs and flows at just the right times - like the best mixtapes (when we made mixtapes).
There's a little punk (Month of May), a little folk (Wasted Hours), a little menace (Rococo). Something for everyone.
But more than just great writing, the band creates symphonies out of every song. Layering the usual collection of guitars, drums and keyboards and elevating them into a tower of immense sound, destroying the simple notion of quiet/loud dynamics.
They were ambitious sure, but hit the mark with integrity and without pandering, something a few other bands should take note of. Arcade Fire almost never come across as pretentious or overreaching (anymore), and rarely miss a beat. The few missteps are too minuscule to really mention.
Listening to this album for the first time it was evident that I would have to eat massive amounts of crow for all the pot-shots and smarmy remarks I’d made at their expense.
Luckily with time I’ve come around and can appreciate Arcade Fire for the very impressive musical talents they are and fondly remember all the great times we’ve had.
Standout Tracks: Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains), Suburban War, Ready To Start.
The way you can hold on to a memory for so long that you wonder whether you’ve invented more of it than you experienced, or if it even happened at all. Does it really even matter?
At it's core that’s what The Suburbs is all about. Remembering something the way you choose to - warts and all - with a fondness and sincerity. And coincidentally it also parallels my heartfelt reunion with Arcade Fire after a lengthy disagreement (granted Arcade Fire may have no notion we were fighting).
Let me back track.
After such a strong debut (Funeral), I thought 2007’s Neon Bible was the sort of pretentious art project that so many big bands seem to indulge in. It was bloated, and angry and devoid of fun. Had all the members been dancing around in French Revolution garb the douchery would have been too epic too even consider!
Moving along....Fast forward some 4 years later and Arcade Fire has not only proven they can return from that dark place but with the kind of gusto and class that has forced people to take notice.
From its ragtime-piano intro, The Suburbs unfurls the story of a summer spent wasting time as a teenager in the burbs. Learning to drive, going to the mall, listening to music, but at the same time dealing with notion that maybe you’re outgrowing all of it. As a kid raised in the 'burbs a lot of this feels and sounds as familiar as my own memories.
There’s an amazing story that may or may not be based in fact (Butler cited his days growing up in the suburbs of Houston, Texas), and according to Spike Jonze may or may not include some kind of pseudo-apocalyptic suburban war (Suburban War, City With No Children). But all of it aside, the album stands on its own - narrative or not.
There’s an embarrassment of riches to go through. Song after song of that uniquely crafted Arcade Fire sound, that ebbs and flows at just the right times - like the best mixtapes (when we made mixtapes).
There's a little punk (Month of May), a little folk (Wasted Hours), a little menace (Rococo). Something for everyone.
But more than just great writing, the band creates symphonies out of every song. Layering the usual collection of guitars, drums and keyboards and elevating them into a tower of immense sound, destroying the simple notion of quiet/loud dynamics.
They were ambitious sure, but hit the mark with integrity and without pandering, something a few other bands should take note of. Arcade Fire almost never come across as pretentious or overreaching (anymore), and rarely miss a beat. The few missteps are too minuscule to really mention.
Listening to this album for the first time it was evident that I would have to eat massive amounts of crow for all the pot-shots and smarmy remarks I’d made at their expense.
Luckily with time I’ve come around and can appreciate Arcade Fire for the very impressive musical talents they are and fondly remember all the great times we’ve had.
Standout Tracks: Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains), Suburban War, Ready To Start.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
Ready to Start!
It's that time of year again. The Shortlist has been announced, the 10 albums are in place and we three amateur critics are here to help guide you through the Polaris Prize.It's an exciting mix of instantly recognizable and more esoteric artists, but as always it will be an interesting and educative process. So sit back, put on your headphones and get ready for 10 weeks of provocative (sometimes) - but always entertaining (hopefully) musical judgments.
Enjoy.
1. Arcade Fire - Suburbs
2. Hey Rosetta - Seeds
3. The Weeknd- House of Balloons
4. Colin Stetson - New History Warfare Vol.2 Judges
5. Timber Timbre - Creep On Creepin' On
6. Galaxie - Tigre et diesel
7. Braids - Native Speaker
8. Ron Sexsmith - Long Player Late Bloomer
9. Austra - Feel it Break
10. Destroyer - Kaputt
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