Sloan
Action Pact
[Koch]

by K. Vicious

Like their fellow veterans Guided By Voices' status in America, Sloan has been justly lauded as the forefathers of the nascent independent music scene that's happening all over Canada right now. And these days, it seems like Sloan, made up of four distinctive members who each write and sing their own compositions, are content to be feeling their oats - for it's been about five years since they released a decent album. Remember this is a band that gave indie fans a lot to cheer about with their three power pop classics: One Chord To Another (1996), Navy Blues (1998) and Between The Bridges (1999). Since then, 2001's Pretty Together was nice but complacent sounding and their new one Action Pact is simply uninspired, almost pathetic in the way it's halfway towards aping the polished sound of The OC favorites, Rooney and Phantom Planet.

In many respects, Action Pact is comparable to Guided By Voices' 2001 effort Isolation Drills. Both records are very hard-rocking ventures. Rob Schnapf produced Isolation Drills, while Schnapf's buddy Tom Rothrock was the producer for Action Pact. The difference may well be that Isolation Drills, despite its clean production values, had some great songs churned out by Robert Pollard. On the other hand, Sloan's latest is a bit of a Californian dodo. Maybe why most of the songs sound like crap is because the riff-heavy Action Pact was recorded in the crass communes of Los Angeles. Whereas the band used to write amusing odes to the sea coasts of Nova Scotia (The NS) or Canadian pop stars ("Take Good Care Of The Poor Boy", about Rufus Wainwright), their new stuff are uninteresting songs with lame lyrics like "There's one thing, then another thing/ Build into a mountain of annoying". All very L.A. dick head rock inspired, eh?

Maybe, but it's unfortunate that the band couldn't match Action Pact's brawn with some of their natural wit. 'Single The Rest Of My Life' - straightforward pop in the Cheap Trick mold, and a song apparently about getting old and settling down - is easily a highlight, and 'False Alarm'is good in the sense that its chiming guitars reminds us of one of Sloan's heroes, Big Star. The ambitious album closer 'Fade Away', with its intricate synths and great sounding guitars, might have amounted to something more interesting than Action Pact's hollow production would allow. And by going for the more radio-ready tunes, the album loses some of the quirky dimensions of their previous works – why was Andrew Scott's wonderfully sinewy contribution 'Will You Ever Love Me Again?' left out, tagged on here as an extra track? It's oversights as such that basically sums up this new botch job of a Sloan album.

Rush
Feedback
[Atlantic]

by airhole

In need for rock music, I chanced upon Rush's latest offering, Feedback. It had a catchy oh-so-psychedelic cover, green purple and Woodstock-type fonts... whoa. Okay, back to the music... This is Rush's effort to show their influences and pay tribute to them. In this album, you would not get any of Rush's usual offering of arena/album rock but instead renditions of covers that have inspired this Canadian power trio to make music as they have.

The album starts out with Summertime Blues, in tribute to the version performed Live In Leeds by The Who. Followed with classic Jeff Beck's Heart Full Of Soul, and then Crosby Stills & Nash For What It's Worth. The list goes on to 8 songs. The power trio delivers the music with much feel and energy. Geddy Lee's vocals sounds mellower than what he normally puts out, probably the effect of verdubbing of vocals. His bass playing continues to be stellar and groovy. Neil Peart remains at the drum throne, belting out late 60's to early 70's drum grooves (think Last Kiss by Pearl Jam). He and Lee lay the groove really nicely for Alex Lifeson to do his thang. Alex Lifeson's guitar sound is big, but it's no surprise, since it's guitar-oriented music. Again, Lifeson's rhythm work is impeccable with energy and feel, what was interesting as well as were his solos. He did not copy the solos, he did more, he "copied" the feelings and the intentions of each solo as he felt. Despite the fact that Clapton laid down possibly the best, some say Lifeson outdid Clapton in Crossroads!

All in all, I felt this album was well produced, it captured the spirit of vintage rock, it did not sound over-processed. A very fine effort by Canadian's power trio. This album plays a little short of half an hour but if you are looking for old school vintage rock, this is for you!

Radiohead
Com Lag
[EMI]

by The Toneknobber

Com Lag, the latest weapon to Radiohead's powerpacked arsenal has been served as a side-dish to 2003's Hail To Thief, which critics say brought the band round full circle with respect to their previous albums like the experimental Kid A and its follow-up, Amnesiac. The EMI Toshiba EP which was rumoured to be a rushed release to coincide with the band's Japan tour in April this year was initially only intended for the Japanese market but somehow managed to reach the hands of fans thirsting for more tunes from the mysteriously shy Oxford quintet. In the midst of rushing its market launch, the record company however apparently got sloppy and left a blarring glitch on "Scatterbrain" that left many listeners rushing to turn down the volume on their CD players two minutes into the song with static screeches scaring neighbourhood cats and sending dogs howling through the back alleys. Thankfully, later Australian releases had clean versio! ns of the song (glitch removed) and made listening to the song a much easier ride.

A remixed version of "Myxamatosis" aptly called "Remyxamatosis", delivered classic Jonny Greenwood re-workings of added beats and thumping basslines that made it almost impossible to sit still in your seat. A more listenable Los Angeles version of I will" with added harmoines brought the song from the abyss of funeral music anthems to a more loungy tune that your mother would be more likely to approve of.

Other tracks include formerly unreleased tracks like "I am citizen insane" and "Gagging Order", initially recorded for previous albums like Hail To The Thief and Ok Computer made it on this EP, making it an ideal album for any Radiohead fan to own and add to the stack of Japanese B-side releases and European presses.