Easily a contender for one of my favourite albums of 2003, I believe Montreal's
The Dears have released the album they've always wanted to, but previously had
neither the money nor the right players to pull it off. Singer and songwriter
Murray Lightburn is the brains behind all this, and from reading interviews with
him, he seems like a real affable chap with a major passion for making this band
work.
With the release of this album, the band seems to have evolved from obscure
indie pop band, to..well, what? semi-obscure art pop band? They did rock
stadiums earlier this year, touring with mediocre grunge throwbacks the Matthew
Good Band (who have a history of feuding with former peers, now national
superstars, but equally shitty Nickelback, but who cares about that really..I
certainly don't)and I suppose this was a good move to expose them to new
audiences.
Early on they were pegged as either imitators of the Smiths or Blur, depending
on the particular song you were listening to. This was not altogether untrue, as
I certainly thought it when I first heard some of the band's early singles,
which could have easily been b-sides from The Queen Is Dead or Parklife. But
what the hell?? In the sixties there were bands all over the US and Canada
trying to recreate an English merseybeat sound and faking English accents, so
why couldn't the Dears try to recreate Manchester circa 1984 or London circa
1995 in the otherwise un-Britpop city of Montreal?? Stranger things have
happened.
Anyway, I'm sure the band is sick of these comparisons, but there's no doubt
that Murray Lightburn's voice bears more than a passing resemblence to
Morrissey, particularly on this album's first single "Lost In The Plot". Not so
much Smiths really, but more reminiscent of Morissey's solo stuff, say off "Viva
Hate".
But back to the album. It's spacious, dreamy, expansive and definitely
melodramatic to the point of major irony, but beautiful. There IS substance to
all this, as opposed to the melodrama of an Andrew Lloyd Weber musical, which
would pretty much have me running for the exit. The band has really left their
Smiths/Blur tags behind with most of the songs, which alternate between catchy,
artfully constructed (do flutes, bells and strings count as artful?) pop songs,
and longer dreamy jams. Actually, the songs are pretty musically brainy from a
technical point of view such as the time signature in the first track "We Can
Have It". Great drumming there. For me the main highlight is the duet between
Lightburn and organist Natalia Yanchak on "The Death Of All The Romance", a song
title so pretentious it could have come out of some 60s musical contrived by
French filmmaker Jean Luc Godard. I especially love how Yanchak coos "ahh ahh
ahh" in a Brigitte Bardot way throughout the song.
These guys deseve all the exposure they can get right now because this album
deserves to be heard. Don't go out tonight, you haven't got a stitch to wear...buy
No Cities Left and be that charming man...or woman. Yeah baby! Oh and check
out their website at www.thedears.org
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