| On
his second solo album, the Tragically Hip front man, with his offbeat cadence
and quavering voice, is found forcing more lugubrious syllables into tiny
musical spaces -- as is his signature style. It's as if Downie's desperate
to cram all his reams of thought into an attention deficit disordered three
minutes.
His
lyrics and music require undivided attention, even during ear-splitting,
suburban guitar solos, because everything means something. While there's
plenty of driving, messy Canadian rock on the disc, including 11th Fret
and Christmastime in Toronto, a chart-worthy paean to miscommunication,
it's Downie's sensitive experiments -- the elegiac Into the Night, or the
lonely piano dirge of More Me Less You -- that imbue the record with warmth,
evincing both sad memories and sparks of desire.
Slightly
disappointed with this effort. I love The Hip and Gord Downie, it's simply
not a great Gordon Downie cd..
www.wienerart.net
Chris
White |
