Indie Music Review

April Edition

Written By: Peter GormanApril 24 2008

While the coming months offer a great deal of CanCon to look forward to (new releases from the likes of Cadence Weapon, Destroyer, and, uhhh, Bryan Adams), it’s worth taking a look at a handful of standout Canadian recordings that have already come hurtling swiftly out of the gates in the first month or so of 2008. Here are a few select tracks…

Destroyer | “Dark Leaves from a Thread”
(From Trouble in Dreams; Merge | To be released March 18, 2008)

Seth Olinski of (the consistently spectacular) Brooklyn-based Akron/Family has demonstrated on more than a few occasions, I’m sure, that the very press that was quick to run (sans joke) with the “bearded gurus of their own bizarre self-contrived faith” tag also regularly suggested that, in the lyrical content of their eponymous LP, the group had merely stumbled upon Kant, Descartes & Co by accident. “I’ve read press where people have said our music is unintentionally intellectual, where they prefer to give us credit for starting a religion than knowing what we’re doing with our music.”

Destroyer’s Dan Bejar need not fear any such misjudgements regarding intentions. Bejar’s precise self-awareness is hard to miss. One doesn’t generally throw around words like intertextuality and self-reflexivity and mise-en-abyme in reference to somebody who doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing. (Heck, writing a Destroyer review, one feels almost compelled to include footnotes.) In this second track from the forthcoming Trouble in Dreams, Bejar sticks with the Destroyer’s Rubies band (with which he’s been touring for the past few years) and is all the better for it. This sounds like about the most well-rehearsed (and well-read) bar band going. With typically conversational nonchalance, he intones: “Sorry if you should find me / Thinking of only the things that I need / I’ve been living in American churches of greed / It’s sick.” Seriously. Terror advances.

As for the potential for journalistic claims of Bejar’s starting his own religion? Nah, though I’m a tad concerned that his listeners might. Drinking Games are a slippery slope.

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band | “13 Blues for Thirteen Moons”
(From 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons; Hotel2Tango | To be released March 25, 2008)
I haven’t heard this song. Nor have I heard anything off this record, the band’s fifth full-length. Yeah, I know. But the truth is, I have a friend/bandmate (who also hasn’t heard a single second of yet-to-be-released Silver Mt. Zion) whose musical opinion I hold in tremendously high esteem. Everybody’s got a handful of bands/musicians they must see before they die or bands/musicians they would kill to see or [some combination of death and music!]. For this particular friend, there’s Neil Young, there’s Tom Waits. (Yep, I’d ditto those.) Then, well he’s not entirely sure, but Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band is the first thing that comes to mind.

Constantines | “Hard Feelings”
(From Kensington Heights; Arts & Crafts | To be released April 15, 2008)

The last time the Constantines were releasing something on vinyl (as is the case with the 7” single that includes this song, as well as “Easy Money”) they were splitting a 12” with The Unintended. Each took a side: Rick White & Co covered four Lightfoot numbers, while the Cons tackled Neil Young. The last time I saw the Constantines live, I had just come from sharing a (wretched!) bottle of Dr. McGillicuddy’s Mint Schnapps in a Sackville, NB ball field and was down the road at George’s Roadhouse—The Perfect Venue In Which To See The Constantines—witnessing those five gents set fire to the place, experiencing something akin to having one’s head explode. Where do these anecdotes converge? No clue. But the point is, it doesn’t matter. If they aren’t the best live band going, they’re damned close. And if this single’s to be believed, Kensington Heights will be the record that most closely approaches the unmatched, shining vitality of the Constantines live. This music is overdriven, cathartic, and massive. “Some people’s love isn’t strong enough.”

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