Tag Archives: Canada

Enter the Haggis: Gutter Anthems

Leave a reply

enterthehaggis_gutteranthemsCeltic-flavored rock from Toronto

This Toronto quintet has been kicking around for nearly ten years, releasing CDs and touring clubs and festivals with their Celtic-flavored rock. There are tin whistles and bagpipes here, but they’re threaded into guitar-bass-and-drums that rock in 4/4 time as well as spicing up hearty jigs and reels. Purists may puzzle over the band’s eclectic influences, but their anthems and love ballads fit easily into the current streams of rock, pop and country. The combination of fiddle, electric leads and power chords on “The Death of Johnny Manning,” for example, isn’t far from what Nashville’s producing these days. Other tunes will remind you of more riotous fellow travelers such as the Pogues and Dropkick Murphys, and old-timers will hear echoes of 1970s Irish rockers Horslips.

The band writes about their travels, memories and interior philosophical monologues, but they’re most regularly inspired by their homeland. They profile farmers battling invasive oil companies, ruddy coastal fishermen, and northern musical pioneers, representing a stalwart side of the Canadian character typically lost in pop culture shorthand. The band’s live performances have honed a group sound that transcends their individual performances. There’s a pair of instrumentals that drives this home, but even the vocal tracks stretch out far enough to show the group’s musical wares. Enter the Haggis treads a middle ground between Celtic tradition and punk-excess, combining the flavors of the former with the rock ‘n’ roll energy of the latter. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | The Little and the Leaves
Enter the Haggis’ Home Page
Enter the Haggis’ MySpace Page

Sloan: Parallel Play

Leave a reply

sloan_parallelplayCatchy, guitar-heavy pop-rock with 60/70/80s influences

Fifteen years into their recording career, Canada’s Sloan has pulled back from the White Album length, breadth and experimentation of 2006’s Never Hear the End of It to craft this tight set of thirteen guitar rock tunes. While the thirty track sprawl of Never Hear the End of It wasn’t as disjointed as the Beatles’ magnum opus, it offered a similar summing of parts, pulling together threads that had been woven through the bands earlier albums. In contrast, this shorter set is more focused and integrated, including second-side-of-Abbey-Road song-to-song segues that help knit together the multiple songwriter’s works. Though it may not be as intellectually impressive as their previous release, the constricted space amplifies the emotional impact of the band’s energy, pouring terrific pop hooks on top of powerful electric guitars, multipart vocal harmonies, stomping rhythms, and neo-psych production touches.

Beneath the sunshine-pop melodies and textures, the lyrics are surprisingly philosophical, with particular attention paid to the changes wrought by growing up and aging. The two clearest statements, “I’m Not a Kid Anymore” and “Down in the Basement” survey personal and band histories with diametrically opposed viewpoints. The former gazes longingly at a youth free of responsibility and bemoans the singer’s current adult circumstances. The latter, a Dylan-toned electric blues, follows the band’s youth-bound four-track fantasies of stardom into middle-period studio excess, and finally to the surprised and satisfied realization that music actually begat a stable career and family. Elsewhere the lyrics contemplate the need to accept change, the petulant impulse to simply move on, and the complacencies of middle age.

The stories in Sloan’s lyrics are not always as memorable as the words themselves, and neither is as memorable as the harmonies in which they’re sung, the pop-rock with which they’re arranged, or the hooks with which they’re strung together. The range of Sloan’s pop influences, and the fluidity with which they move between them is especially impressive as they, for example, crank up ‘70s styled pub-punk on “Emergency 911,” drop into glam for “Burn For It,” and regress to bouncy bubblegum on “Witch’s Hand.” You can hear elements of many great pop bands here, including the Beatles, Jam, Sweet, Cheap Trick, Oasis, Greenberry Woods, Fountains of Wayne, and others. Sloan doesn’t sound exactly like any one of them, though neither do they have an instantly recognizable sound of their own. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Hear “Witch’s Hand”
Sloan’s Home Page
Sloan’s MySpace Page