Starting over
I love it when an album that’s completely unfamiliar to you feels like coming home.
A number of years ago I spent two years in the second-largest city in Manitoba, Canada (which is just as small as it sounds). At the time, seven or eight friends rented an old church that had been converted into a coffee shop to live in. The coffee shop had failed, and with that much space just going to waste it seemed like a logical use to have tenants in the basement. Meanwhile the rectory (or whatever you call that big open space where the pews are) sat essentially empty, the pews long since removed. This gang of miscreants decided that they’d throw lavish parties to help cover their rent and bill payments, occasionally booking small touring prairie bands to play a set on the stage while they sold booze illegally to area residents that heard about these dubious events. Once they moved out, the Hell’s Angels would eventually move in and hold similar functions. Apparently college kids are smarter/more discreet than bikers, because they’d eventually get busted by the RCMP. True story.
Anyway, one of the biggest parties was a Halloween party that Winnipeg band Sixty Stories played at. I don’t remember much from that event, aside from the band sitting off in a corner drinking mostly by themselves (I don’t blame them). At the time of the church show the group was somewhere in between having released their only full-length album, Anthem Red, and breaking up, which was a considerable shame given how incredibly good that album is. The power-pop threesome crafted an incredibly engaging, loosely-themed album focusing on the trials and tribulations of growing up as a teenage girl. While the subject matter has the potential to come off maudlin, depressing, or trivial frontwoman Jo Snyder has a knack for painting a realistic picture of how significant the experiences of that era of life are to those living it as opposed to how their reactions are viewed by others.
After disbanding in 2004, Snyder and her bassist/co-writer Sarah Sangster reformed under the moniker Anthem Red, adding the extremely adroit drummer and guitarist that currently grace their new lineup. They managed to write, record, and release the album Dancing On The Dishwasher in 2006 and absolutely nobody noticed. That’s probably because it’s put out by the Company With The Golden Arm, a German label that co-released their Sixty Stories records.
Frankly, it’s pretty fucking sad that nobody is listening to this CD. The new players have opened up Snyder’s songwriting, providing a lusher and more deft backdrop for her observational, slice-of-life tunes. Blurring the lines between Jawbreaker, Elvis Costello, and Vivian Girls/Discount/Fifth Hour Hero/your favourite girl-punk band, there are no bad songs on this album. Snyder’s singing voice is just as unique as her writing voice; where her vocals were once described by reviewers as “androgynous” (and that’s one of the friendlier descriptions) she’s managed to reach a slightly higher register without losing that unique tone. Her focus is more on adult minutia than adolescent this time around: anxiety over flying, reconciling the fact that your parents are getting older with your own aging process, smoking on a fire escape.
Better still, the writing contributions from Sarah Sangster (”Power Lines,” “Broken English,” “Wonder”) rival anything the band has produced in either its present or past incarnations. “Broken English” has caused me to once again go all rubbery over a song; like “Second Hand Tables & Chairs” from Sixty Stories’ Anthem Red it’s a perfectly structured song that exudes genuine emotion and boasts a jaw-dropping performance. Perhaps most impressive is the sublimely-layered three-part harmonies, a trick that never really presented itself in the old band. Equally as jarring (in a good way) is “Diet Cokes & Stethoscopes,” an introspective number about seeing your future in your aging parents eyes.
This album is a more than welcome reminder of days gone by. A release cheaply recorded in another group’s practice space and released on another continent has retroactively become one of my favourite from 2006. In just a week I know this album back to front; several of the songs on it are honestly some of the best I’ve heard in years. Snyder is now a bit closer to actually penning the sixty stories she may or may not have intended to write when she started her last band; here’s hoping she makes it there and beyond before she adds “former” to another band to her resumé.
Anthem Red - Broken English [5:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Anthem Red - Diet Cokes & Stethoscopes [3:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Sixty Stories - Second Hand Tables & Chairs [2:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadDancing On The Dishwasher can be found by internet detectives on iTunes and through the band’s myspace page. The excellent Sixty Stories material is also available from iTunes and Smallman Records webstore.
