If you’ve been reading this blog at all, you’ve noticed that I like to start (and rarely finish) retrospective series about musical artists, mostly for the purpose of taking potshots at them. I’ll usually go deep on these projects and review them track-by-track, album-by-album. Giving equal consideration to every song on every album works really well if you’re hoping to find ammunition to drag a band, because most people just remember the singles. The deep cuts are usually the funniest, and also the most fun to write about.
This is all well and good if you’re interested in really sending up somebody terrible, but what about covering a group that you’ve got no real interest in slagging? Maybe it’s worth looking at everything, but not worth going to such extremes to dig for the dregs?
I find myself wondering this as I consider looking into the career of Sloan, stalwarts of the Canadian alternative and indie scene. I’ve got nothing against them. I’ve heard tunes that I like. I’m just not really all that familiar with them outside of their singles.
A friend of mine went off the deep end on a Sloan kick earlier this summer and I thought to myself, “Maybe… maybe I should get into Sloan!”
Maybe this can all get done in one or two posts? Wait, these guys have like 15 records or something. This is going to be a pile of work. But if it gets hard, I can always just quit!
So, hey: Let’s get into Sloan.
Smeared
Sloan’s first full-length album was released in Canada on October 1st, 1992… It is widely considered a seminal album of Canada’s 1990’s alternative rock scene. (wikipedia)
Kicking things off in the alt-explosion days of 1992, Smeared opens strong. Really strong! I’m not sure that I’ve ever heard “Underwhelmed” before, but this is a real banger and I am here for it. Lyricism pretty wry, which tracks with what I know about this band. The way that he says “school” reminds me of South Park. Hahah. Great harmonies, and a rock-solid groove. Amazing use of a tremolo pedal or something. I have to keep these notes on the short side, but I’m really enjoying this tune. Great drum work on the choruses. Love the fuzzed-out bass on the third verse. I dunno, I just think this is great. This is kind of as close to “Rock and Roll” as something can get and still see me liking it.
Smeared cranks on with some pretty great lil’ rockers! “I Am The Cancer” is a highlight, with it’s propulsive rhythm, sweet backing vocals and stupidly distorted guitar noise. The stutter-y groove on “Median Strip” is nifty, and the tune is satisfyingly rocked-out in certain places. “500 Up”, as well, is a pretty fun rock tune that seems really straightforward at first, but has a bunch of wacky detours (I dunno about the bass guitar break, tbh), and a section where the drummer sings lead that sounds like a CanRock version of a Hum song or something. Pretty good! “Two Seater” is a ripper on a level that I’m not sure I ever thought possible in Sloan-land. Like, not perfectly polished, but it’s got a sense of menace that I really dig.
The songs aren’t all great, and the overall vibe is very same-y, but one can’t deny that these young folks can make a heck of a racket at times. The melodies are often a little half-baked and some of the vocal performances have particularly shaky moments. The compositions also seem a little loose, and things don’t feel super machine-tight My overall impression of this album lands solidly between “this is really fun noisy rock music” and “kinda amateurish, but not in an unenjoyable way”. Most (not all) of the songs have at least one section that I think is great, if not a series of them. I’ll bet this band was really fun to see live during this time period.
What I may be feeling most of all is regret for having snoozed on this record for over 30 years. It’s pretty fun!
ALBUM SCORE: 7/10
Twice Removed
Sloan steps up to the plate for its 1994 sophomore effort, Twice Removed, sounding a little more polished and looking a lot more ridiculous on their album cover. Don’t worry, though, they’ll continue to reach new heights of musical polish and embarrassing album covers as the years wear on.
I can take or leave the album opener, “Penpals”. It’s an okay tune, but when we move to “I Hate My Generation”… my interest is piqued! Strange, but strangely catchy, this is – so far – the best Sloan song that I’ve never heard before. Clearly indebted to 60s rock while perhaps sending up 60s rock (which we’ll see more of on the next album, from what I recall), this song is a lot of fun to listen to! From there, we move on to “People Of The Sky”, which appears to feature lead vocals by the drummer, and has a feel that seems more akin to slacker rock bands of the day like Pavement or Sebadoh, which is to say that this song really rules. Haha, I should have listened to this album a long time ago.
Next up on Twice Removed, we find the only song on this album I’m actually familiar with, “Coax Me”. It’s a terrific song, wonderfully melodic and moody. The vocal harmonies and lead guitar lines are highlights here, but it’s all good. What a great song.
The remaining songs on the album can’t quite live up to the killer three-song run above. In fact, the middle of the album devolves into a string of tunes that seem kind of like a bunch of half-baked fuckaround nonsense that could easily have been… uh… not on an album. Things rebound a bit with “Snowsuit Sound”, which features some nifty production ideas and fun parts. And then the record moves on to it’s actual fuckaround song, “Before I Do”, which I actually kind of like. The noisy jam with spoken word vocals (that sound like the bored guy from Weezer’s “Undone (The Sweater Song)”, which is pretty funny) has a fun vibe. And album closer “I Can Feel It” is sweet, melodic and tightly written.
Although Twice Removed sags in the middle section (don’t we all, har har har), there are some real gems to be found here. I’m not surprised that I didn’t feel attracted to this when it came out. More so than their debut album, Twice Removed seems like a very conscious and purposeful statement that the Sloan-ites were extremely not interested in what was going on in popular music in 1994. The dominant hits of that year were in the grunge rock and “alt-rock” arena, and something this obviously indebted to the pop-rock ideals of the mid-1960s would have very much been a left-of-centre phenomenon. As an aside, “Left of Centre” from Smeared? Not great!
As a grown up guy who isn’t currently obsessed with the grunge rock that ruled the world when I was twelve? This album, when it hits, hits perfectly. There are songs here that I haven’t heard before (at least that I am aware of) that I will definitely be spinning again, and that I think are amongst my fave Sloan songs ever. The weak tracks prevent this from being a slam dunk, but there are so few slam dunk records in the world if you really think about it.
ALBUM SCORE: 8/10
In the next post, we’ll take a look at two albums that I know a whole lot more of, One Chord To Another, and Navy Blues. One Chord To Another is the only Sloan album I actually ever owned, and Navy Blues is the one where they sing the song about how a guy’s body gets covered in coke fizz or something. Looking forward to it!
The Fraudsters' Almanac 