[review 2006: the best of the year]

No one should have to live all of their life on their own.

For a band so totally invested in the fortunes of melancholia, “no one should have to live life on their own” is an impossibly optimistic statement for the Dears to make. And yet there it is, not just a throwaway line but repeated over and over in the chorus to “Ballad of Humankindness,” a passionate refrain that may as well be a rallying cry. It is the living heart of Gang of Losers, an album not far removed from 2004’s No Cities Left and yet an entirely different beast.

In the run-up to No Cities Left and in the wake of the Protest EP, a lot of people paid a lot of attention to the band from Montreal that arguably kickstarted the Canadian indie music renaissance. How, exactly, do you follow up the grandiose, melodramatic statement that was the Dears’ debut album, End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story? No Cities Left answered by trumping the debut on nearly every metric. The sound was bigger, the subject matter weightier, the mood darker, the delicious agony more acute. As a result, No Cities Left was quite accomplished and yet just a bit hard to love; occasionally, the melodrama was just a bit too over the top, a bit much to cope with. Some parts of the album, like the beginning of “Expect The Worst/’Cos She’s A Tourist” and the end of “Never Destroy Us,” felt more like assaults. In the end, No Cities Left seemed to creak ever so slightly under the weight of its own hubris.

Fast forward to the opening of Gang of Losers two years later, and the shift is not so much perceived directly but rather felt on a subconscious level. Yes, the orchestral arrangements are toned down, and yes, the songs seem less ponderous, more lightfooted. But neither of those explanations seems sufficient to explain why Gang of Losers feels so different. But it does. Somehow the Dears have evolved, their outlook more optimistic, their music more hopeful.

“Ticket to Immortality” is a surprisingly lush opener that helps to set the tone for the whole album. Amidst a sea of warm backup vocals, singer Murray Lightburn enters with a spring in his step and a soulfulness in his voice that surprises. By the time Lightburn starts in with another bold statement, “the world is really gonna love you,” you can tell things are going to be different this time around. And though “Death Or Life We Want You” is a bit of a throwback to the Dears of old (though a very good throwback), we’re back to the new regime on “Hate Then Love” and the sparkling “There Goes My Outfit.” The latter especially is the closest, I think, the Dears have ever come to sounding seductive—though clearly the lyrical content is at odds with that particular interpretation.

“We’ve got the same heart,” Lightburn sings on “You and I Are a Gang of Losers,” but strangely it’s not until Valérie Jodoin-Keaton and Natalia Yanchuk chime in after the bridge with the same line that you feel the impact. And then finally, another statement of hope, “Ballad of Humankindness,” a typically conflicted song where Lightburn plays the role I have to think a lot of us have played before—the guilty and frustrated individual that sees everything that is wrong with the world and feels powerless to change things. Finally spurred into changing his ways, Lightburn sings the line that is at once a sign of outrage and a declaration of action: “no one should have to live all of their life on their own.”

Gang of Losers is not simply a hopeful album or a passionate album. It demands the sorts of things many of us have felt were missing from our own lives without really realizing it—a sense of belonging, a sense of community, a sense of things set right. Lightburn and the Dears make references to Us throughout the album. It’s clear that they’re not just talking about themselves, but also their audience, who share many of the same hopes and dreams for tomorrow. We’ve got the same heart. You and I are a gang of losers, indeed.

[review 2006: the best of the year]

I read a Pitchfork review of a Be Your Own Pet show that included this passage:

Being a late twentysomething at a BYOP show is an unavoidably anthropological experience, and anthropology, with its subtext of superior vantage, always carries a whiff of condescension. Being a teenager is something I’m irrevocably outside of, and being a teenager is exactly what a BYOP show is about.

Well, okay, sure. The members of Be Your Own Pet aren’t even of legal drinking age yet, and their music is essentially one giant, seething mass of fuck you. But last I checked, a giant, seething mass of fuck you isn’t something you have to be under 18 to enjoy. I was at the Toronto show and let me tell you, there were plenty of late twenty-somethings smashing elbows into other people’s chests and generally beating the shit out of themselves and each other, and it was awesome. And all this in Toronto, a city where the standard hipster dance is to remain as deathly still as possible.

You know how Pixar manages to make millions of dollars making terrific animated movies that appeal to little kids and adults alike? Be Your Own Pet is a lot like that, except instead of cute animated fish they’ve got punk guitar and Jemima Pearl, a tiny near-college-age woman who shrieks and shakes as if she’s possessed. Teenagers probably like Be Your Own Pet because they can smash shit in their rooms and rock out, because Be Your Own Pet bring the rock like so few bands can these days. Thing is, I like them because I can smash shit in my room and rock out too, and I ain’t no teenager. How can you listen to a song like “Bicycle, Bicycle, You Are My Bicycle” and not immediately want to yell “We’re on two wheels, baby!”? (On a side note, how is this not already the theme song for every Critical Mass group in existence?) There are plenty of ready-made slogans that should appeal to anyone with a healthy sense of rebellion. If you can’t appreciate a line like “Have fun, and be safe with it—just kidding, FUCK SHIT UP!” then you’re not allowed to be a part of my revolution.

I suppose you could make a comparison to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Karen O, but to be honest I don’t remember the Yeah Yeah Yeahs having nearly the same amount of energy. This is an album where the stompin’ good time that is “Adventure” is practically a ballad compared to the other tracks, an album where the one real ballad contains the line “We’re not out of ammo yet!” And in case the rallying cries of “I’m an independent motherfucker!” and “Get outta my skin, get outta my skin!” or the spine-dislocating jostle of “Let’s Get Sandy (Big Problem)” or “Girls On T.V.” don’t do it for you, there’s the final masterpiece: “Ouch,” an awesome punk tribute to Dawn of the Dead, complete with a chorus that includes the seminal line “When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth.”

Be Your Own Pet will rip your face off and kick you in the shins if you give them half the chance, and man is it ever worth it.

[review 2006: the best of the year]

For a while there, at the beginning of the year, it looked like everyone had forgotten how to have fun. It seemed like every album I picked up would feel oddly restrained, composed—a bit sterile, to be blunt. This was a bad sign: every year, music critics take one of two stances when looking back on the Year In Music: either it’s “this was the worst year for music ever,” or “I know it looks like the worst year for music ever, but…” Things came to a head one day in April, when I picked up a stack of albums in the hopes that I’d find something out of the 2006 crop to like. Out of four albums, three fell disappointingly by the wayside. For the first time, I was genuinely concerned that I’d stumbled into the worst year for music ever. I thought of packing it in, shuttering the website and dropping my CD addiction cold turkey. I thought that maybe I was too old and too cynical to listen to music any more. I thought of cashing in pension cheques and taking up lawn bowling, resigned to a fate of yelling at kids to turn that racket down and get off my lawn.

I would’ve done it, too, if not for the fourth album I bought that fateful day in April, the album I didn’t even know existed until I saw it on the shelf, the album I almost didn’t buy, the album that quite literally saved 2006 for me: the Essex Green’s Cannibal Sea. The opening strains of “This Isn’t Farmlife” hit like the sun splitting the overcast sky in two, Sasha Bell’s gorgeous voice singlehandedly breathing life into the drab, concrete grey landscape that was my universe of music circa mid-2006. Maybe the emergence of spring had something to do with it too, I don’t know, but Cannibal Sea was my soundtrack for a solid month.

Previous Essex Green output stuck fairly closely to the fey 60s pop template that fit nicely into the Elephant Six universe; in fact, you may recognize Bell and Jeff Baron from Ladybug Transistor, which is nominally the parent band to the Essex Green’s side project. Both bands were marked by a double dose of effete charm and refined pop sensibilities, but their chamber pop oeuvre was an acquired taste—the most successful Ladybug Transistor album, The Albemarle Sound, could be described as charmingly unhurried if you were the generous sort, or precious and quaint if you weren’t. Not so with Cannibal Sea, a far more upbeat album that might faintly recall folky 60s pop but never crosses over into precious territory.

Though Cannibal Sea is apparently not much different from their previous album, The Long Goodbye, the Essex Green have evolved substantially from their early recordings. The renewed sense of energy and vigour is especially evident in the first half of the album, a freight train of pop momentum from “This Isn’t Farmlife” all the way through to “Cardinal Points.” With a definite decrease in the flute quotient and a corresponding increase in rawk guitars, Cannibal Sea sounds meatier than the Essex Green I used to know. And then there’s the matter of Sasha Bell, whose vocal performances are a compelling mix of schoolgirl innocence and sly confidence. Her warm, friendly presence on the album is an absolute joy.

But those are just two especially great elements in what is an outstanding listen overall. As a pop album seemingly custom-made for springtime, Cannibal Sea is absolutely perfect. And though I can’t enjoy glorious bike rides with the strains of “Rue De Lis” or “Uniform” in the cold of winter, Cannibal Sea still stands up surprisingly well six months later. Yes, it’s “just” an indie pop album, and it’s not doing anything particularly innovative. But the Essex Green have recorded an album worthy of enthusiastic approval—the first genuinely lovable album I heard this year, and still one of the best.