Gary's Great Lake Swimmer's Review

I had a look at the long list of Polaris prize nominees a while back and was a little disappointed that some of my favourite albums this year didn't make the shortlist. The Stills return to form, k-os' amazing album Yes, and others were all passed over for the ten we've been profiling here. I was prepared to give the selection team the benefit of the doubt and give these albums a chance. I came in with an open mind and allot each album its due diligence.

Then came the Great Lake Swimmers.

I had big expectations from this band having liked the few tracks I’d heard up until now. But I’m beginning to think they’re best enjoyed in minimal doses. The shorter your listening time the less likely you are to be lulled to sleep by the boring and repetitive nature of the music. Thus saving yourself from a potential accident while listening in your car or traveling on the subway.

You start to assume the words “fun” and “hope” don’t get tossed around at band practice a lot. And you might have called the music depressing if wasn’t so hollow and devoid of emotion. Truthfully there’s nothing terribly organic or soulful going on here – just the musical equivalent of colour-by-numbers: Chorus goes here; bridge goes there; graceful fade-out starts now.

To be perfectly honest, this sounds like a record made by robots whose attempt at human emotion and feeling have fallen woefully short. But where robots have their artifice to blame, I’m still struggling to figure out what GLS’s excuse is.

Every song seems to be the same middling tempo and recorded at the same maddening whisper like they were trying not to wake the baby in the room (which they probably want you to think is a remote cabin in the woods somewhere). There are nods to a few folk-crooners like Bon Iver and Ray Lamontagne, but only in the most cursory ways and never ever approximating the sense intimacy and awe from either.

Everyone assumes that middle of the road music sounds like everything else on the radio, giving it a safe and hassle-free sound. But the truth is middle of the road music is anything that doesn’t challenge you, make you think and elicits something other than apathy. Sonically, Lost Channels is Dramamine for the ears and like your old college lectures dares you to stay conscious. The song title "She comes to me in Dreams" becomes wildly appropriate considering the narcolepsy inducing music it rides in on.

I brought up the long list of Polaris Prize nominees because I strongly believe there were albums that were far more deserving than this one that never made it this far. In this process I haven’t loved every album but I’ve always given props to the selection committee for music I could at least tell was filled with heart and devotion. If there was anything resembling those emotions on Lost Channels I sure as shit didn’t find it.