At 05:32 PM 7/15/2003 -0400, Kevin Gandel wrote:
>
>ok...someone tell me something about these Canadians...cuz man, I just
>heard 5 songs by them and i'm flipping out...some of the best stuff i've
>heard this year.  Anyone seen them live?

The full album, A NEW DEVOTION, was in my best-so-far list early this
morning. I personally don't hear the Beatles so much: this has much more in
common with more overtly psychedelic groups from the '66-'68 British
proto-art-rock scene, the stuff retroactively dubbed "freakbeat."  The
first album by the Move, perhaps, or much of what's on NUGGETS II, and
especially Nirvana (settle down, Segarini, I mean the original UK Nirvana),
whose SIMON SIMOPATH album sounds like it was the direct inspiration: this
is putatively a concept album about some dude named Silas, although like
most concept albums, I've completely ignored that aspect of things, and
probably find the album better for it.  It's all kind of ornate and
slightly overblown, but if you tend to like this sort of thing, I think
you'll find that they have a stronger sense of melody than many similar
groups, and the album's 18 tracks do tend to differentiate themselves in
melody, rhythm and arrangement.  I'm not blown out of the water, but it's
really rather good.

S