2:59 will continue as a repository for record reviews and will refocus on music from this point forward. There’ll be no more babbling about comic books or wine or the Niagara region here. For that, go visit Adam White.

Download:http://www.anti.com/media/download/708

Interestingly ANTI- will be counting the blog posts via services like Google Blog Search and Technorati. It’s actually rather refreshing to see a label leverage social media in this way. Not only is it completely on the level, but it’s relying on the good will of people to propogate. A lesson for others.

Neko Case’s new record, Middle Cyclone, arrives on March 3rd. You should buy it.

Best of 2008 - Adam’s Picks

Punknews recently posted several year end retrospectives. We have lists from our editors, lists from our  reviewers, our readers’ choice list, and a look at the most popular articles of the past year. Happy new years!

Darkness for alt-country bands tends to be of the heartbroken, whiskey soaked variety. This isn’t quite that. Elliott Brood takes a more western Gothic approach, only without the theatrics. While the band has no problem hitting that mark on individual songs, a album of it can seem rather lifeless. The Ambassador LP, with its melancholy atmosphere and rustic qualities, was well composed but not really all that much fun. I’m absolutely thrilled that Mountain Meadows, title and high concept aside, seems to have turned a corner. This record is an absolute blast, finding the perfect balance between the dark, (ahem) brooding balladry and upbeat, foot stomping bluegrass. The band’s acoustic approach trades off with more heavily orchestrated rock and roll. The album opens in this way, moving from the impassioned “Fingers and Tongues” to the spry instrumental “T-Bill.” On “Write It All Down For You” lively and perfectly placed backing vocals stand testament to Elliott Brood’s growth as pop songwriters. The album takes a breezy and spacious turn with “The Valley Town,” which wouldn’t have felt out of place on The Acorn’s opus Glory Hope Mountain. “The Body” is a sprawling tune with some nicely chosen guest vocals and a haunting close. Cementing how well structured this record is, the quiet moment’s chased with the stomping, shout-along barnburner “Miss You Now.”

With Mountain Meadows Mark Sasso, Casey LaForet and drummer Steve Pitkin have created a record that completely bridges the lively Tin Type EP and the sinister depths of Ambassador. They’ve reintroduced a sense of life and dynamism to their work while staying true to their lyrical and thematic outlook. Their acoustic roots are in full display but their sound isn’t bogged down by nostalgia or revivalism. Four songs into Mountain Meadows Elliott Brood croons “What are you down about?” After this effort? Not a heck of a lot.

Calling Out, the band’s fourth record, follows trails staked out on 2005’s The City. The group continues to hammer away at a signature sound, trading in their weirder tendencies for poignancy. That makes this less instantly gratifying than the vintage romanticism of their early work, but their weary yet grounded outlook has a better shelf life. This time out the duo’s tapped Paul Aucoin of the Hylozoists for horns and vibraphone, with Nathan Lawr again helping out on percussion. “Good Days” starts the record on a darker note, taking a fairly pessimistic look at religiosity that becomes something of a running theme. “My Hands Are a City” is the album’s true single and its most satisfying bit of pop songwriting. The nostalgic march of “Jl Recalls His Amazon Adventure From A Comfortable Chair In The Window Of No. 5 The Kingsway” gives the Weakerthans some competition on the retired Victorian explorer market. “Get In The Van” dwells on the grind of touring life, doubtlessly accentuated by the vastness that comes with Canadian geography. The title isn’t spoken until the final line, but it’s treated as less an anthem and more of a sinister addiction. The later half of the record finds more straightforward rock than the prior, notably the cacophonous racket that ends “Lost At Sea” and the urgent rhythm of “Hand Prints In Wet Cement.” There’s a mix of mundane and epic on the album’s final pair of tracks. “End Of The Day” is literally about riding the bus, while “Ship Breaking” is a rather timeless piece on shipwrecks that climaxes in what I can only discern is honest-to-goodness Morse code.

It’s worth noting that this album was born of a failed experiment. Calling Out was to be recorded with Iner Souster’s custom instruments, built from junk, but the results weren’t reliable enough for the doubtlessly meticulous duo. The customs were relegated to the rhythm section, and the record itself sounds surprisingly conventional given those origins. Tracks like “Lost At Sea” are quite heavily orchestrated, building to a crescendo of guitar distortion and electronic flourishes, and it’s hard to imagine that played on pots and pans. “Junkstraments,” even the attempted use thereof, implies a looseness that the album doesn’t convey in the least.

Calling Out is, if nothing else, a carefully and lovingly crafted batch of songs. It’s no surprise that an entire studio’s grown around the FemBots in Toronto, as the group takes the art of record making fairly seriously. The results are, once again, second to none.

The band owes a lot to 60s psych bands like the 13th Floor Elevators and garage innovators like the Seeds. They’re schooled in the type of heavy, melodic rock that Neil Young and Crazy Horse popularized. And while their roots go that deep their aesthetic and attitude owes much to Dinosaur Jr (and by extension the Replacements). The detached slacker image that J. Mascis so effortlessly crafted loomed large on Ladyhawk’s first record and it does once again on Shots. If the album disappoints, it’s that it lacks singles with the instantly endearing and uplifting hooks of “The Dugout” and “My Old Jacknife.” The three songs that that open this album are regardless very strong, with “Fear” standing out as one of the better built tracks of the year. It spoils the listener by loading three or four strong melodic ideas into four short minutes. After that opening salvo Shots becomes decidedly more restrained. Momentum’s never truly lost, but the band meanders a bit. Of course Ladyhawk doesn’t move too fast by design, and they seem quite comfortable lumbering through sleepier tracks like “Corpse Paint” and the 10 minute marathon “Ghost Blues.” “Night You’re Beautiful” makes an impression, with backing vocals straight out of “Walk On The Wild Side” and some crunchy Rust Never Sleeps guitar work. Shots rounds out a ten song run with “Different Beginnings,” an inspired, if somewhat paranoid, alt-country gallop with a hint of the Byrds in the chorus.

Shots is as frustrating as it is rewarding. I don’t know if it’s self-control or self-defeat, but the band seems to pull back on the reins more than the record requires. It remains a quality piece of work, just one that lacks the impact the Ladyhawk clearly has the skills to deliver. I’m hesitant to fault the band too much on this though as if there’s one thing most bands fail at, it’s exercising restraint. This all keeps Ladyhawk’s work from being too top heavy or self-important. While it’s not demanding your attention it’s infinitely re-listenable. I’d love to see Ladyhawk release three records a year, warts and all, because they could pull it off without becoming tiresome. There’s plenty bands I love that I wouldn’t even ask that of.

Kensington Heights is a more dynamic album than it’s predecessor, but Tournament of Hearts‘ lessons in restraint and subtlety are far from forgotten. The Cons long ago embraced the sense of weight that comes with a slow burn. The lumbering chorus of “Million Star Hotel” is perhaps the best example of this. The passion’s there, but the song stomps and trudges where a younger, greener Constantine may have defaulted to frenetic dissonance. “Hard Feelings, “Trans Canada” and “Credit River” are the album’s anthems, never reaching the chaotic freshness of past singles (”Nighttime / Anytime” in particular) but efficient, driving and well crafted. Since their sophomore full length each Cons record has included a handful of astonishingly wise and downright life-affirming rock songs. We saw it in peerless cuts like “Young Lions” and “Soon Enough,” and Kensington Heights clocks in with three, if not four contenders. “New King,” “Brother Run Them Down,” “Our Age” and “Time Can Be Overcome” each strive to carry on this legacy and are positively beautiful. Bryan Webb is stronger in his role of elder statesmen than he is a rock star and the gravitas he lends these songs can’t be understated. It’s taken some time for the band discover the best way to apply Steve Lambke’s contrasting vocal style, but “Shower of Stones” is one of his better works.

As the Constantines matured they’ve incurred something of a backlash. There’s scattered criticism that as the band moved on from their Fugazi weaned origins they grew too comfortable. If Kensington Heights proves anything it’s that while Fugazi is hardly lost they are fighting for stage time with Young, Lightfoot and Cohen. That’s the dynamic. “Waiting Room” is too tense for cottage country and alienated kids on the subway probably don’t blow off steam to the “Canadian Railroad Trilogy.” The Constantines straddle both worlds, but those looking for tension and rebellion are going to come up short and will undoubtedly find the record overlong. There’s a tipping point where one becomes confident enough in their worldview that they stop having to nervously scream about it, and the Constantines crossed that line two records ago. Your mileage will vary if that’s what you’re seeking.

There’s the faintest hint of a subgenre emerging in Canadian rock that runs parallel to the indie rock boom but is really something else entirely. It may not be self-aware yet, but there’s a commonality of spirit and priority shared among an increasing number of bands. You can hear it in punk acts like the Weakerthans and the recently emerged Attack In Black. You hear it in folk groups like FemBots and alt-country bands like Cuff The Duke and Elliott Brood. It underlies the acclaimed indie rock of Apostle Of Hustle and Jason Collett. You find its sensibilities on stage with Ladyhawk and in the catalogue of our dearly departed Deadly Snakes. I can’t give it a name, but the Constantines are its standard bearers.

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.

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.

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.