2:59

I’m feeling confident, so let’s going ahead and make the argument that the Sadies are essential listening for the punk rock crowd. Now this is by no means an under-appreciated band; they find no shortage of critical praise with each successive record (and there’s been something like ten at this point). Yet coming as we are from the punk perspective, they are a group we hear mentioned far less than they should be. This is a four-piece that’s remarkably adept at a handful of styles that punk fans (and musicians) tend to gravitate towards once age and restlessness take hold. If you’re spinning whiskey-soaked roots acts like Lucero, caught up in the dark southern tales of Murder by Death, tripping on the low-fi freakout that is the Black Lips or simply digging more Anti- than Epitaph, there’s something in the Sadies’ repertoire that’ll grab you.

The Sadies have always been masters of genre blending, bopping between alt-country, psychedelic garage, `60s surf rock, spaghetti western storytelling and Canuck indie folk — often over a handful of songs. This record solidifies their stylistic adventures, boiling everything down to a level of focus that the band may have missed in the past. After 2006’s absolutely epic double live album, it’s satisfying to see the band bottle up all that raucous energy and take a cool introspective turn. Jayhawks principle Gary Louris is on board producing the effort and he keeps everything on the rails.

A brief bluegrass instrumental leads the band into the feedback-heavy (and clumsily named) “The First Inquisition Pt. IV.” The track recalls the Sadies’ early days in the garage, and is really quite comparable to something you’d hear from the Black Lips’ when they dial down the weirdness. “What’s Left Behind” carries forward the sound from the Favourite Colours full-length, tracking Byrds-styled harmonies over some absolutely stellar guitar work. Down-tempo tunes like “Sunset to Dawn” never seem to overstay, and no song on the record ever even flirts with the four-minute mark (with most not even breaking the magic two and a half). The ballad quickly gives way to the dreamy road song “Yours to Discover,” and on yet again to the propulsive storyteller “Anna Leigh.” Perhaps the Sadies’ most uncelebrated skill, often overshadowed by the guitar wizardry of the brothers Good, is their masterful command of mood. There’s vast emotional ground covered between the sinister urgency of “The Trial,” the wise and weary “My Heart of Wood” and the rather sweet “Never Again.”

New Seasons is a concise record by a band that could have too easily have written a sprawling monster of a full-length. Yet with the depth of their catalog there’s no shame in a little restraint. The Sadies may be uncomfortably labeled as a roots rock or alt-country band, but they write with a sense of brevity and directness that should appease the punk attention span. This is a band that deserves their praise, and one that it’s never too late to get on board with.

My “Best of 2007″ list is now online over at Punknews. These articles seem to grow more massive every year and this one was no exception. I’m not even going to attempt to repost the content here.

Best of 2007 - Adam’s Picks

Also check out the rest of the staff picks from our dozen or so writers and reviews, as well as the top 20 albums as ranked by our readers.

Cheers.

Of course we were right to be wary of Vice. While not technically a major label (in fact, I think they lost their major backing earlier this year), they’ve definitely set themselves up for suspicion. Let’s remember that this is a brand offshoot of a smarmy indie lifestyle magazine. For the Black Lips to take their rising star from the unquestionable grassroots of In the Red and the hallowed halls of Bomp to such a home is cause for concern. The live LP that launched their Vice career was no help. Oh, Los Valentes del Mundo Nuevo was excellent, don’t get me wrong. You should own it. However, it mined the best material from the ITR and Bomp days and played them for maximum chaotic effect. John Reis produced the bloody thing. It was almost too good. It was either meant to ease the transition or document that pre-Vice band before the fall. Good records shouldn’t make one more wary, but this one did. So now that the veil’s been lifted on Good Bad Not Evil, what’s the verdict? If Vice has afforded the band anything, it’s the opportunity to pull off some creative promotional stunts. The higher profile has had zero negative effect on the band’s sound. Thank heavens.

There’s a pretty clear trajectory to the Lips catalog, and Good Bad Not Evil fits the pattern well. With each record the band’s cleaned things up, trading off a few layers of garage distortion for better songwriting. It’s not a compromise by any means, but they’ve come to rely on different strengths. This isn’t a band that needs to fall back on Stooges-styled feedback and shocking stage antics; not anymore. As their songwriting continues to tighten we’re seeing a few less few weird-for-the-sake-it diversions and more experiments with genre and structure. The album opening “Lean” feels familiar. It puts its head down and digs into a garage groove with some messy-by-design bridges that fans of Forest Spirit will certainly dig. However, it’s “Katrina” that really defines today’s Black Lips. The pop hooks seem almost too obvious, but they work so well against the band’s raw production and twisted lyrical content. The Lips are at their best playing the lo-fi pop-punk card, keeping their tempos fast and the songs as concise as possible. “Bad Kids” and “Cold Hands” are shining examples. Much of it is lyrically blunt, but cleverly so. There’s a fun dumbness to the Black Lips that isn’t quite an attempt at irony, but it’s definitely something the band strives for.

Regardless of how well they do it, the band’s attention span is far too short to lock them into one approach. For the most part the album’s diversions are quirky and odd but they never really over-stay their welcome. The country ballad “How Do You Tell a Child That Someone Has Died” is the biggest departure, but its length keeps the novelty in check. The bluesy “Lock and Key” that precedes it is much more the band’s style. “Veni Vidi Vici” is a cool little psychedelic number and one of the record’s most interesting compositions. Between it and the jangling Nuggets guitar work of “It Feels Alright,” there’s no question what the late Greg Shaw saw in these guys. Wherever they’re go, this is a Bomp band at their core. “Navajo” bears mentioning as the most infuriatingly catchy song this year. Things even get folky with “Trancendental Light.” Yet for all its various diversions, Good Bad Not Evil is a fairly fluid listen. The Lips have always been a fairly loose band, so it’s hardly disruptive and quite a pleasure when they zig rather than zag. That’s true song to song. That’s true album to album.

Despite the sheer reverence shown for the Winnipeg act, the Weakerthans are really a delightfully simple band. Particularly in Canada the indie scene’s treated them with the acclaim afforded to bands like Broken Social Scene and the Arcade Fire: the luminaries. While I’d argue that John K. Samson and company certainly deserve it, they’re clearly of a different breed. When I listen to those bands I’m well aware that I’m listening to art, intentional art, and the bands know it. The Weakerthans? They’re a rock band. They play rock songs. However literate their songwriter, however many roots tangents they travel, that’s always been the case. Reunion Tour rides a wave of anticipation but it delivers exactly what makes this four-piece so endearing: touching, exciting, and accessible rock music.

I live in Reunion Tour’s world. It’s the band’s most identifiably Canadian record, but it’s hardly nationalistic. It’s the setting. It fleshes out Samson’s characters. It’s remarkable how a quick reference to Ontario’s goods and services tax is far more effective and genuine than the chest-thumping civic pride we hear from so many street punks. I take pleasure in the fact that somewhere in the southern U.S. there’s a listener simply baffled by the word “bonspiel.” The Canadian winter’s a reoccurring theme, a bit of pathetic fallacy to play against the record’s imperfect, flawed characters. Samson’s songs are cautionary, with his subjects suffering through the inertia of their lives, whether it’s retreating to the bar at the curling club or neglecting their too-wise cat. Winter suits them.

That feline survives 2003’s Reconstruction Site, which also donates its well-orchestrated, lush instrumental approach to Reunion Tour. The poetic “Elegy for Gump Worsley” is a bit of a throwback to Left and Leaving, a hockey-minded sonic successor to “Without Mythologies.” Midtempo rockers like “Sun in an Empty Room” and “Night Windows” make up the meat of Reunion Tour, which is perhaps only lacking a few songs with the pop-punk energy of “Our Retired Explorer” or “Aside.”

However Reunion Tour won’t share in the acclaim of the past two records, at least not at first. Like Reconstruction Site, it’s going to be met with disappointment, at least initially. That’s how this band works though: They don’t write the songs that blow your mind when you first hear them — they write the songs that become the pillars of your regular listening library for years to come. Is this the, er, weaker Weakerthans full-length? It’s certainly the most economic and succinct.

Let’s talk again in around a few months; I’m willing to bet these songs will have firmly rooted themselves in your life by then.

There are some excellent things on the horizon, particularly if you’re into the loosely defined indie folk / alt-country / cowpunk genre that we can’t seem to name. My old favourites Cuff The Duke return this October with “Sidelines of the City,” following up 2005’s eponymous Cuff The Duke. The song “Surging Revival” is up on MySpace now and it promises a great record. I’m getting a much stronger vibe about this than the prior record in fact. If you give it a listen give the opening a bit of patience, as the payoff’s grand.

I’m not sure how I stumbled across Akron/Family, but I absolutely love the label “freak folk” that they’ve been attached with. Some fine soul out there has blogged about them recently and they’ve attached the song “Ed Is A Portal” as a download. You just need to hear this one, the group energy’s off the charts. I’m not familiar enough with the style to really say if this is something atypical, but to me it just sounds so fresh and fun. A lot of cabaret-punk / folk-punk acts that I’ve heard try to do this raucous group sound, but it always sounds fake to me. This, however, sounds incredible. The rest of the record’s all over the place, but it’s certainly worth digging into. I don’t think this is in stores as of yet, but it’s definitely on eMusic already.

Now I’m going to go finish my mojito and fantasize about this mythical upcoming Constantines record. They’re finally back with a Canadian label (and holy crap it’s Arts & Crafts!) and the big announcement’s expected in a week or so (at least according to Radio 3). Here’s hoping.

My weekly Navel Gazing summary at Punknews is often accompanied by an image that may have little to no actual connection with the content of the article. It’s fun and nonsensical, and on rare occasions may have a hidden meaning to me or the other editors. In fact there’s an inexplicable trend of us using newly discovered sea life (I think I convinced a hardcore band to name themselves after that sasquatch lobster, but I digress). More often than not, and particularly because I’m lazily drawing on what I know (as opposed to a achieving some genuine sense of whimsy), I’ve been using comic book images.

When I received an email from Marvel Comics I was convinced, before even reading it, that it was going to be a terse warning to cut out my vanilla copyright infringement. Seeing as I’m so often focused on the ills of the music industry it’s been pretty much been drilled into me that corporations don’t talk to the public unless they’re brandishing a heavy stick. Thankfully I was completely off base. It turns out Marvel was cool with it, and not in a “hey, it’s free advertising for us” way (out of context pictures of Beta Ray Bill and Fing Fang Foom don’t really achieve anything), they were just genuinely cool.

Roll the calendar a month forward and I find myself freelance writing for Marvel.com, exploring how music and comics intersect by chatting with musicians who happen to be Marvel zombies. To my absolute thrill, the first feature is with Billy Morrisette of the incredible Dillinger Four. It turns out he grew up with Roger Stern’s Avengers and fondly remembers the “Trial of Hank Pym” story, reminiscing that it introduced him to the “dynamic of a flawed hero.” How wonderful is it to even get that perspective? I see so many comic fans on message boards these days bitching about “Hank Pym the wifebeater” and how much the arc ruined the character for decades to come. Count me in with Billy: Pym’s faults make him infinitely more interesting and I’m delighted whenever he’s involved in a story these days (particularly the ongoing Avengers: The Initiative by Dan Slott and Stefano Caselli).

So I’ve somehow managed to merge my music and comic geek universes together, and I never assumed that would be possible. I’m going to ride this unnatural mutant chimera as far as it will take me.

Marvel.com - Unstable Decibels: Rock and Comics with Dillinger Four

Ottawa’s The Acorn has posted two songs from their upcoming Paper Bag release Glory Hope Mountain and it’s sounding absolutely gorgeous. I dug the band’s prior EP Tin Fist but I never really latched onto a distinct voice in their competent indie-folk tunes. This, however, sounds like a band with ten more years under their belt. Just mesmerizing stuff.

Head over to MySpace to check it out.

CBC news is reporting that HMV, the largest chain music retailer in Canada, will cut prices from 20 to 33 percent on music across the board, with back catalogues from popular artists potentially shedding $10 dollars a disc. Of course CRIA is blaming piracy for this apparently tragic bout of consumer friendly adjustment, but as the apparently last young digitally savvy human being that pirates nothing, let’s look at this situation: I own hundreds of CDs, granted many arrived at on my doorstep for review purposes, but I still far outspend the average Canadian on legitimate physical music product yearly.

Recently I saw the light. I tended to purchase a CD, rip it for the iPod and Apple TV, then shelve it. I own CDs that I’ve never touched after that initial process. I’ve always argued that the artwork and liner notes were important to me, but that was a lie. The artwork looks great on my television screen, but again the books tend to never be touched. If I wanted the lyrics, I’d just hit Google. It became apparent that there was no sound economic reason for me to continue to buy CDs, particularly at Canadian chain stores where the prices often top 20 dollars a disc, when I could get the same end result from iTunes for $9.99 or eMusic for considerably far less than that. Mail order’s nice, but it’s better suited to vinyl (where the art and packaging truly does matter) and decent indie stores don’t really exist in small towns like Niagara any more. Digital it is.

If the industry wants me, the dying breed of non-file sharing consumer, back in the stores shifting through the racks, they need to beat or match the digital prices. There’s absolutely no other incentive. It’s not particularly enjoyable to be in an HMV, so they can’t rely on consumer loyalty like some indie stores. I liked hanging out at Orange Monkey in Waterloo digging through obscure discs, despite the price. HMV can’t beat that. So what’s my incentive? It’s price. It has nothing to do with piracy and it’s sad that the CRIA’s spinning it that way.

The CBC’s no better for listening to these dinosaurs. This price cut was badly needed, and probably doesn’t go far enough. Any consumer could have told them that. There was no need allow the CRIA rep to hijack the coverage and spin it into another dire piracy plea.

Buzz band. How about we all put this term to bed? There’s nothing that invalidates the contents of a press release more effectively than the use of this label. The bullshit detector just hits 11 at first sight.

For the sake of argument let’s say that the term’s actually appropriate — The act in question is genuinely generating a fair amount of chatter from an assortment of zines and local scenes. If that’s the case then say so, and be specific. There’s nothing better than an identifiable trustworthy source. Labeling an act as having “buzz” is nothing more than a shallow invitation to guilt the writer onto the bandwagon. I doubt anyone with more than a modicum of pride wants to be seen as chasing trends. Of course they may end up doing so (when the entire culture lurches in one direction it’s hard to remain ambivalent) but they want to at least feel that they’ve made the discovery somewhat organically.

It’s just too meta a term. It declares “the tastemakers have spoken” without acknowledging that you’re pitching to those very tastemakers. It dates the act, practically looming the possibility of future overexposure and fatigue before the band ever gets there. The net allows us to delve into our own tastes so effectively that listeners, whether they’re zine writers or the audience, are getting used to avoiding so-labeled buzz bands on principle.

Hey. Long summer no posts. I blame… well I really don’t need to explain myself to you, you’re a blog and I own you. Stay in line.

Anyways, all that PR spam I was complaining about in the prior post now has a name, thanks to some apparently very recent web 2.0 jargon creation:

bacn: Email you very well may want at some point, but not at the moment. Low urgency communications that really need their own repository separate from the inbox. A higher grade meat than spam, but not quite the gourmet stuff.

Boing Boing posted about it today, and apparently since being coined last Sunday it’s now all over the place. Including here.

The internet must give etymologists nightmares.