Sound Salvation Army

How curious! Just as I was writing a review of the brilliant new Mike Angus album, another little record came into my inbox that is equally indebted to the space it was recorded in. What are the odds!

Brock Tyler is a multi-instrumentalist based out of Edmonton. In the interest of full disclosure we share a delightful mutual friend, but even still I hadn’t heard Tyler’s work until he passed along his new EP, You Can’t Keep The Sun Down. And thank goodness he did.

The brief record was set to tape by Tyler and Tyler alone in a church in Edmonton earlier this year over the course of a few nights. He describes the setting best on his bandcamp page:

You press the record button a lot, and then maybe you erase what you did and try it again. You repeat this several hundred times. Occasionally you might sigh or smile depending on the results you’re getting. You take a break to eat trail mix. You lie down on a pew for awhile and stare at the ceiling. You get up and you press the record button several hundred more times. It sounds kind of lonely, I guess, but in small doses it’s actually sort of cathartic…The room played a big role in the sound of this recording. All the reverb you hear is the church itself; nothing added later, just a few microphones standing around picking things up as I played…You can sometimes hear the wooden ceiling popping in the quiet parts of the songs.

That statement seems utterly ridiculous to me. To think that this album that just sounds so perfectly put together is purely the result of natural occurrences and not some kind of next-level studio wizardry is absurd. The natural reverb created by the space itself is so warm and inviting that it makes Tyler’s songs seem like old favourites right from the first spin. He puts a bit more substance into his arrangements than some bare-bones folk or acoustic acts, bringing the church’s own piano and drum kit into the mix along with his own trumpet and some light percussion.

The mood of the album also belies the creepiness Tyler hints at above, however. The tracks reflect the kind of quiet contemplation that both comes from and leads to a person spending a lot of hours by themselves, making the album (and it’s closing trio of progressively-themed spring month-referencing songs) a very gently, lyrically-driven listen.

That introspection drives the stand-out track here, “On Saturday, Maybe,” which is also one of the most slyly upbeat numbers in this too-brief 15 minute collection. The beat comes from Tyler’s own multi-tracked hand claps, framing a catchy piano track that is bright and poppy, bracing the hopeful lyrics. “I’ve been feeling down of late but I know things will turn around,” he concedes to the listener, “on Saturday, maybe.” The song demonstrates how key Tyler’s voice is to these songs working as well as they do. It’s not quite thin exactly, but his delivery is generally more relaxed, almost detached from the material in a way. When he brings in some falsetto in the verses you get a real feel for the impact that Elliott Smith, Pete Yorn, and Ron Sexsmith albums clearly had on him and his writing. Moreover, the brief “verse” mentioned above ends with the perfect hint of malaise in Tyler’s voice, one that suggests it might not be this Saturday in particular that his world will brighten up.

The most somber number follows with “Because You Live,” a bit of a bait-and-switch due to the fact that it has probably the most hopeful lyrics on the EP. Lyrically the song (which could read as a Christ allusion if you see it through those eyes) is looking up the whole way along, but the languidly finger-picked acoustic guitar, minor piano chords, and distant trumpet create a mood that acts as a hard counter to the message.

The middle track of the ’spring suite’ (closing tracks “The Flowers In April” “The Snow In May” and “June) is also a dip down into melancholy, as Tyler laments a resurgence of winter that makes it seem as though the summer will never come. The piano in “June” almost recalls “The Look of Love” in a way, but the sparse and almost dour guitar chords are made significantly lighter as the song continues. Brock adds trumpet, more hand claps, and some glockenspiel before it all drops away and the song ends with just a wistful remembrance of how it began.

Brief though it may be, You Can’t Keep The Sun Down speaks to the listener both about the quiet spaces in between moments and the happy accidents that make life (and recording music in a meaningful place) worthwhile. He and his songs were respectful of the venue and that solemnity echoes back throughout. This is one worth hearing.

 

 Brock Tyler - On Saturday, Maybe: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

You can buy the EP at Brock’s bandcamp page and you can watch for tour dates on his web site.

Pat entries acoustic, Brock Tyler, Canadian content, church music, Edmonton, folk, independent, singer/songwriter

I have a sneaking suspicion that Basia Bulat saved my life.

Well, probably not. But I’d be lying if I said she didn’t help me get my head straight, even if she didn’t realize it.

The year didn’t get off to a great start for me, if you recall. Mentally. I latched on to music in a big way in order to begin my turn-around into brighter days and Basia Bulat’s Heart of My Own played a huge part. Having been absolutely devestated by the Take-Away Show video for “The Shore” and it’s quiet, devastating beauty I couldn’t wait for more. If I’m being honest, I actually watched that video so much that I got a little crazy about it. I was mooning over a singer of songs.

By the time her February concert in Saskatoon came around I think a small part of my brain had convinced the rest of me that I was going to go to that concert and hear her play that song and I would charm her thoroughly and she would smile at me and I would die from happiness.

Like I said: mentally.

The show was transcendent, despite a torrent of sound problems thanks to whatever untrained bum was working the board that night. But Basia was an engaging, accessible, funny, gorgeous performer. I stopped by her merch table, which she was working herself, just to say hello. I was nervous, like a teenager, fumbling for something, anything to say. She had the last copies of her 7″ single, the Sam Cooke cover, “Touch The Hem Of His Garment,” a record I ordered the literal moment I found out it existed. We chatted briefly about how terrific Sam Cooke was. I was too chicken to ask her to take a picture with my tiny stuffed lion, Carlos, who is Twitter-famous (I took a picture of him in front of the stage while she was performing but it didn’t turn out; you can see him here having a bit too much to drink at Amigo’s Cantina before the show).

I’m sure that’s happened to a million other people before, but it was exactly what I needed. I felt an inexplicable adoration and while it may not have made much sense it felt good at the time just to be able to feel that.

If you perused the link above to check out what I thought of the album when it was new, you know I liked it. Frankly, I feel like it’s definitely in the top 5 best albums of the year. But it’s also a beacon of hope for me.

Listening to it now awakens that part of the brain that never lets go of the worst feeling of melancholy you’ve ever experienced, but only ever-so-slightly. It gives me the smallest little pang of what it was like to be alone every night after not having been for so long. It reminds me why I need to be grateful for the music (Basia’s and others) that got me through that period of time: because music is one of the world’s oldest emotional triggers and you never know what the songs that will help you get through your lowest points will be.

Moreover, it reminds me to be thankful for what I have now. I’m not sure Basia Bulat and I would have had anything in common if we ever had a conversation that extended beyond a mutual love of Sam Cooke songs, but I would imagine the odds are probably against it. What I do know now is that I’ve since found the right person for me, the person I was waiting for during that dark period. Listening to Heart of My Own makes me smile about the changes that were just around the corner without me knowing it, the way my life would be changed forever.

That I would find happiness again.

 

 Basia Bulat - If It Rains [2:33m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Basia Bulat - Gold Rush [3:33m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Basia’s had a big year so far too. She began working on new songs before travelling to Europe and has some Ontario shows planned. Buy some tunes to help her out here.

Pat entries acoustic, Basia Bulat, Best of, Best of 2010, Canadian content, life-savers, singer/songwriter

In the run-up to the release of her new solo album, Are You My Mother?, Calder released two songs from the record onto the interweb: lead track “Slips Away” and fourth track “Arrows.” Those two songs are probably the best on the album, but the margin is pretty thin; ALL of the songs are amazing.

For me it’s kind of a surprise. Not because I thought Calder wasn’t capable of it, I just didn’t consider the possibility. I wasn’t blown away by the few releases I’d heard by her previous band, Immaculate Machine, and Kathryn Calder is not the first thing you think about when you consider the New Pornographers. In a way this is my introduction to her but I feel confident in saying I’m now a big fan.

Context here is everything; as has been widely noted, Calder recorded the album in a makeshift studio in her childhood home while caring for her terminally ill mother. The project was suspended when her mother passed away. Knowing that going into the first listen, I was devastated right from the opening line: “Read a story from your sleep and tell me everything I need to know.” It’s just one of many incredible lyrics that Calder rolls out over the course of 36 minutes.

The video above also sets a wonderfully elegiac tone for the most aggressively sombre song on the album: the mostly-piano “Arrow” is a devastating listen that is unequivocally about loss and how it can shatter a person. The dark tones of the animation and the spare movement perfectly mirrors the fragility of the song. It’s also perhaps the best example of how captivating Calder’s voice is; it has a very human element, not as unique or bombastic as Neko Case, her New Pornographers bandmate who offers backing vocals on a handful of tracks. You can relate to her. That is invaluable on an album with such a universal element behind it.

Closer “All It Is” also hews close to the bone for Calder. She openly laments how time passes quickly when it’s least expected to, how before you know it weeks and months are gone and loved ones are starting to become missed. I can only imagine how hard it must be for her to perform that song live.

There is a heaping helping of subtlety at play here. On “Castor and Pollux” the line, “Take a look at my heart, you’ll find/The chambers are blown wide open,” could be interpreted a number of ways. The rest of the song tells about a pastoral, secluded, even agrarian setting where two people are becoming reacquainted after a time. Meanwhile, the nearby city is burning down and crumbling. Is her heart blown wide open out of love and adoration or grief for those dwelling inside the surprisingly fragile urban structures? I expect she answers her own question in the last verse: “They built the walls too tall, they built the walls too strong/Well so much for strong, things only last so long.”

But despite the weighty set of circumstances the songs aren’t as mired in sadness and darkness as one might expect. While “Slip Away” starts with a quiet, almost ominous tone it also has a melodically buoyant, wordless chorus that is just the first of several instances of full-out rock and roll. “A Day Long Past Its Prime”, “Castor and Pollux,” “If You Only Knew,” and “Follow Me Into The Hills” are all up-tempo, perhaps even sprightly numbers that are the furthest thing from brooding.

Plenty of ink has been spilled by people opining on the validity of intensely personal songwriting as opposed to vacuous, mindless party songs. This is not the place for that argument. But there can be little doubt that the circumstances that surrounded this album ensured that Calder would settle on nothing less than absolute perfection (or at least absolute satisfaction) with the finished product. I hope she’s happy with Are You My Mother? because she’s come damn close.

 

 Kathryn Calder - Slip Away [4:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Kathryn Calder - Arrow [2:52m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Digital downloads can be found through iTunes and Calder is directing people to Amazon for physical copies (although she also encourages people to ask their local record store to bring it in).

Pat entries Canadian content, home recordings, Kathryn Calder, singer/songwriter, solo material, videos

Howard W. Campbell Jr. wrote in Kurt Vonnegut’s phenomenal Mother Night, “When you’re dead, you’re dead.”

Death may not be one of the central characters on Franz Nicolay’s heavily-thematic new album, Luck & Courage, but nonetheless the New Jersian (?) has drawn considerable inspiration from one of my favourite writer’s best books and its shifting moral. The overarching story is that of a boy and a girl falling into that sense of cohesion and insularity characterized by Vonnegut in Mother Night as “a nation of two,” that complete integration of two people into their very own universe where nothing else seems to exist. Needless to say, it doesn’t last long; the record carries the metaphor to its furthest possible conclusion, outlining the disintegration of the infrastructure of that metaphorical society.

In writing about Nicolay’s past releases I’ve mused on his apparent ability to write in any style he so chooses. That holds true here: the frenzied rock riffing of “Have Mercy” is added extra bombast thanks to operatic backing vocals. The curiously obtuse story-song of a plague pronouncing its love for its victims on “Z is For Zachariah” is backed by spare alternating banjo and plucked strings. “My Criminal Uncle” is carried by horn flourishes that at times sound like a fanfare taken right from the floor of a 16th century English king’s courtyard. Cooing female backing vocals, handclaps, and ghostly synths make “Anchorage (New Moon Baby)” a kind of ghastly doo-wop number. Accordion, strings, piano, pedal steel, saxaphone, and more create a rock and roll tapestry that is as familiar as it is unusual.

The stand-out track is the open wound, back-handed confessional that is, “This Is Not A Pipe.” Each line is a direct contradiction to the hard-line statement quoted at the top of this article. “It is not raining, my shoe is not untied, I have not been unhappy my whole life. This is not a wall, that is not a ceiling, this is not a scrape, I don’t know that feeling. Not a spoon, not dirty dishes, not a knife…and I have not been unhappy my whole life.” Another key line from Vonnegut’s story resonates here (even though this song was also inspired by another literary work, Nicole Krauss’ The History of Love): “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” The slowly-unraveling denial of everything around the song’s narrator is an obvious attempt to convince himself that he isn’t alone, that his entire world isn’t threatening to float away from him in pieces. But in the end what’s dead is dead.

Of course, Vonnegut riffs on the idea of that moral throughout Mother Night. At one point he also encourages the reader, “Make love when you can. It’s good for you.” In the downright jaunty closing track Nicolay re-introduces the main characters, Felix and Adelita, and outlines their final undoing. While their nation of two may have collapsed in upon itself Nicolay assures the listener that they’ll still be making love whenever they can; that a country’s leadership may fall but those that dwell within it can persevere.

 

 Franz Nicolay - This Is Not A Pipe [2:27m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Franz Nicolay - Z Is For Zachariah (ft. Emily Hope Price) [2:38m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Get the album on CD/digital from Team Science and Sabot Productions will have vinyl, although they tend to take up to several years to actually get LPs out. So keep checking back. iTunes has digital

Pat entries Franz Nicolay, genre-free, indie, moustaches, rock, singer/songwriter, Team Science Records, writers, writing

The king of stately, pastoral album art returns!

Little more than a year has passed since Hayden Desser released the very Hayden-like In Field and Town. Like most Hayden albums it was kind of (really) sad and mostly about lady troubles (that is to say trouble with ladies). But it also featured a few of the brightest moments of his career to date as well: “Lonely Security Guard” was a lovely, upbeat character piece about a security guard whose real passion is origami and “Did I Wake Up Beside You?” — while an absolute lyrical downer — contained a chorus with a melody that is downright ebullient, especially for Hayden. After five albums of mostly misery, it was quite nice to see. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of it.

Enter The Place Where We Lived, an entirely new joint written on the road as Hayden and his mates in Cuff The Duke toured Canada and the U.S., opening for Feist and the National. Its hard to say if Hayden is loosening up on this record, but there are moments that definitely feel like he’s progressing very slowly towards showing some more of the levity and sense of humour he has displayed on stage.

It starts with the opening title track, which bobs along with an occasional guitar riff that is somewhat reminiscent of surf rock, or at least what might result from a surf guitarist listening to too many sad Hayden songs. That is to say its a little bit subdued. But the song on the

The real gem is “Let’s Break Up,” a tale of a “half-glass and…a sad sack” who both know the end is nigh, but only one is willing to admit it. Bolstered by an ebullient walking bassline, the half-glass pleads with the sad sack to cut the chord and let him start moving on. The Duke-sters provide a great don’t-call-it-country shuffle-and-stomp backing track and prop up Hayden’s lilting melody with a delectable high harmony that injects something entirely new into the singer’s oeuvre.

On the whole, however, there’s a lot of the slow, somber, acoustic songs that have been featured on his releases since forever. I’m not suggesting that when you do something exceptionally well you should force yourself outside of that comfort zone, but it seems telling that the most thrilling standout tracks on Hayden’s last few releases aren’t cut from his usual cloth.

 

 Hayden - Let's Break Up [3:07m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Hayden - Dilapidated Heart [5:21m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hayden’s CDs are far more reasonably-priced than his vinyl, but both are available from MapleMusic’s website. Dang ol’ iTunes has it too.

Pat entries Canadian content, Cuff The Duke, Hardwood Records, Hayden, indie rock, singer/songwriter

The rock and roll lifestyle is by definition an exercise in excess. Musicians who live it long enough to change their ways and gain some introspection often also see the quality of their output drastically reduced as a result. Then there’s others like Butch Walker whose work continues to hold up under any weight and that’s what makes him the most consistent major label artist of the last twelve years in my opinion.

Sadly, he’s probably better known for some of the suckier things he’s done in recent years than the acumen of his songwriting. That includes writing and producing hit songs for lowest-common-denominator acts like Avril Lavigne, Pink, Bowling For Soup, Rock Star Supernova, and Katy Perry. I know, right? But he comes by it honestly. After playing in an honest-to-goodness, non-ironic cock-rock hair-metal band, his drastically underrated pop-rock outfit Marvelous 3 gained one-hit-wonder status before getting into some heavy disputes with their label and dissolving the group. That’s where he gets his background in production; Walker produced their latter albums to great effect and they’re clean, big-sounding, and really sharp.

Every few years in between production jobs he’s also worked up some pretty stellar solo joints, culminating in last year’s Sycamore Meadows. Having emphasized his rock star years and the excesses that come along with it on past releases, Walker really steps out this time around. The impetus for this set of songs is the total loss of his home in the devastating California wildfires of last summer, more than 2,700 of which razed countless acres of land and thousands of homes. Not only was the residence destroyed, Walker lost the master tapes to every song he’d ever recorded, including the eight or so full albums he’s recorded during the course of his career. The result is some heavy introspection that deeply informs the songwriting.

The starkest example is “Going Back/Going Home,” a track where Walker starkly lays bare pretty much every single thing he’s ever done wrong, sparing no one from the facts of his drug use, whoring-about, and the failures of his musical career. Like any pop songwriter worth their salt he touches on break-ups and lost love, probably most effectively on “Here Comes The,” where he calls in a favor from the aforementioned Pink to serve as his other half. Call it the spiritual other half of the Mountain Goats’ “Woke Up New,” a precursor to the morning after the break-up where Walker realizes what’s in store now that he’s lost a lover. Combined with “the Weight of Her,” a classic-sounding guitar pop anthem about what Walker knows best — girls that aren’t good for him — it’s an opening trio that really encompasses the work Walker’s done to this point and the new direction he’s introduced on Sycamore Meadows.

There’s also an irony in the fact that Walker is actually creating a few genuine, heart-felt ‘cigarette lighter love songs’ after writing an approximation of one in “Cigarette Light Love Song” from the Marvelous 3’s last album Ready Sex Go. While that one skimped on specifics and was more of an aping of the general lyrical leanings of hair-metal torch ballads, songs like “Passed Your Place, Saw Your Car, Thought Of You” and “ATL” get surprisingly specific in their details of love lost in the worst kinds of ways. Both have either minimal click-track percussion or none at all and rely on piano and Walker’s fragile, affected vocals to carry the melody, stripping away the dense layers of hooky rock guitars and backing vocals that he cut his teeth on with his earlier records.

This album is a genuine attempt by a damaged man to work out his demons in the only way he knows how, and even on the less-intimate cuts its hard to tear yourself away for fear of what revelation you might miss on the next track.

But as I said off the top, this is the most consistent major label artist of the last decade so here’s some classic cuts from his back catalogue to help sell the artist as a whole. The irony is that Meadows isn’t being released on a major label…but that’s really a minor issue.

 

 Butch Walker - Going Back/Going Home [4:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Butch Walker - Here Comes The... [4:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Marvelous 3 - Cigarette Lighter Love Song [5:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Marvelous 3 - Every Monday [3:07m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

His whole catalogue is available on iTunes, more or less, Sycamore Meadows specifically is on for the astoundingly low price of $5.99. Seriously. A very limited number of physical releases are available through his webstore, probably because the rest are owned by evil major labels. See if you can find them anyways.

Pat entries Butch Walker, Marvelous 3, pop rock, singer/songwriter, Sycamore Meadows

Editor’s note: I think this might be our first post concerning a big-time major label artist/album. Get psyched for the lawsuit!

There’s a lot of symbolism surrounding the new Kanye West album and I don’t like it one bit.

I remember a time when every rapper was laying claim to the title of “best rapper ever.” That was all anyone in hip-hop really aspired to. Dre, Eminem, Snoop, Wu Tang. Hell, even Master P thought he was the top of the heat. Every notable rapper of the last fifteen years has had the market cornered on braggadacio.

Kanye may have made similar claims on his previous albums, even though its pretty much a concensus that while his work has shown numerous glimpses of genius in both production and lyrics, his flow is far from top-tier.

But guess what? It doesn’t matter anymore. Not even at all. Actual rapping in mainstream rap has taken a back seat to one of the all time lamest fucking gimmicks ever to hit music: blatant, constant use of auto-tune. Auto-tune is a piece of equipment that uses a phase vocoder to correct the fuck-ups of marginally talented people in vocal and instrumental performance. That means that if someone sings flat note, the software digitally corrects it so it sounds like the right note. Recently rappers have re-appropriated it as a way to make themselves sound like robots. TI, T-Pain,

So in a nutshell, instead of aspiring to be the greatest rappers ever, hip hop artists today are fighting to show off how absolutely terrible they are at singing. While I’m all for moving the genre away from flossing and violence and bad grammar and worse spelling and racial epithets and gangsterism, I’d also like to see those that have talent aspire to do better.

There’s no disputing that Kanye has plenty of talent, but after listening through this album a few times all I see is one enormous mistake. The material here is for the most part astonishingly good; aside from a couple of lame ducks, the songs are sparsely constructed and unified in theme and tenor. It’s a stark, dour reflection of everything that’s gone wrong in Kanye’s life and there’s no shortage of pain and emotion in his delivery. It overcomes his extreme arrogance, at least lyrically. You’d just never know it because every second of this album has fucking robot voice on it. Also, the Philosopher Kings already did the whole “heart monitor as beat” thing and it worked much better for them.

The rapping is minimized and West sings nearly all of every song. I have no problem with that, but I feel like I would’ve loved this album if he had taken an extra six months to get some vocal lessons, polish up those pipes, and do a proper job of singing these songs. Make it genuine. The robot voice just steals any sense of realness from the songs.

I don’t care if you make the most heartfelt and genuine songs of your life; I would rather hear them sung badly and passionately (like his first song on a recent Saturday Night Live performance) than stripped of any human quality at all. Hell, get someone else to sing them for you.

I sincerely doubt I’ll ever be listening to this album again.

 

 Kanye West - Love Lockdown [4:31m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Kanye West - Heartless: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

‘Ye would like you to buy it on iTunes if you have your robot ears on.

Pat entries auto-tune, depression, Kanye West, rap, robot voices, singer/songwriter

When reviewing albums at the University of Regina’s Carillon student newspaper, I had some really great times and passed harsh criticism on a lot of terrible, terrible music. Lil’ Romeo, Downset, Hair of the Dog, Guttermouth…kind of like a bad dream, in retrospect.

One of few brightly-shining exceptions was the debut album from Montreal melodic rockers the Frenetics. I greatly enjoyed These Mistakes Took Years of Practice, in particular the opening track, “Are You Waiting?” At the time I wrote something mildly hyperbolic, especially considering the mid-tempo pace of a good number of songs: ‘The energy of the band comes through immediately, causing one’s head to nod uncontrollably and their foot to tap like it’s going out of style.” Very insightful, younger me.

The follow-up, Grey Veins To The Parking Lot, did little to advance their prominence, despite being a fairly flawless album. Surprisingly, even in a year when the Arcade Fire trumped just about everything else in music as far as the attention of most people, the Punknews website lavished a tiny bit of praise on them, recommending it for fans of Ted Leo, Elvis Costello, and the like. “the Journalist” made my best songs of the year mix tape, though I would soon realize that “the Bitter Years” is the most perfect song on the album and also a flawless summation of the bands abilities.

A break-up followed shortly after, relegating the band to the list of groups I never managed to see in person before their time ended. Malcolm Bauld eventually headed out on solo tours intermittently, but I was never able to catch those shows (and I still haven’t). But as soon as I heard New York-based label Art of the Underground would be putting out his debut solo LP I got a copy. Hell, if we’re being honest I got two copies.

I haven’t been disappointed. Bauld has gone from writing mature pop rock for grown-ups to writing mature music for grown-ups. Opener “Charity” features the stomp of his former band, albeit in an acoustic manner. Pretty much the rest of the album is far more subdued, a great number of the songs gentle, hushed numbers with acoustic guitar, piano, and a smattering of cello, accordian, and harmonica. Lyrically, Bauld remains a vivid and compelling storyteller, as showcased on the lyrical centerpiece of “Royal Road,” the b-side’s first track. He tells the story of a man who tamed a wild woman, settling down only to one day discover that she hasn’t quite settled. Fleeing her infidelity, he enlists in the army, serving in an unspecified desert conflict for years before returning to New Brunswick’s Gagetown military base. It’s there, late one night, his wife emerges from the darkness, inexplicably, returning to his arms. It might sound a bit sappy, but the telling of the tale is rich and compelling.

“Royal Road” also leads off an incredibly somber hat trick of songs with gorgeous, minor key melodies about searching for lost love and trying to find your way home. The final track is a elegiac piano-only closing number that closes out the album in a very appropriate fashion, some downright funereal trumpet and cello offering the perfect accompaniment for such a sad tune.

I really can’t recommend this album enough. One of my favourite all-time Canadian songwriters has only gotten better with age.

 

 Malcolm Bauld - Royal Road [4:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 the Frenetics - the Bitter Years [3:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 the Frenetics - Are You Waiting? [3:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Malcolm Bauld’s debut solo joint can be found here:
Art of the Underground: on CD and LP.

Pat entries acoustic, Canadian content, singer/songwriter, solo material