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Chris S. wins a copy of Miss Emily Brown's latest. Thanks to all who entered!

Last time I wrote about English Words was...well, when they weren't known as English Words. In a previous life, they went by Smothered In Hugs, and they were pretty good, if a bit indebted to The Replacements.

It turns out that, apart from the name, not much has changed. Their new EP, Customer Appreciation, shows that they still draw the same level of inspiration from Paul Westerberg. How much inspiration? So much so that I can hear ample traces of Let It Be and Tim, and I've never even heard either of those albums.

To be fair, though, English Words have branched out to incorporate other elements of the '80s, as the New Wave-y RD Prologue demonstrates. And to be even more fair, the band is still pretty good. I'm not sure whether they needed to change their name, but if Customer Appreciation is any indication, English Words are as much a band to watch as Smothered In Hugs were.

Well, this is unfortunate.

I was all prepared to rave about Make Yourself Warm, the sophomore EP from Gramercy Riffs, and to encourage everyone to stop what they were doing right now and go grab a copy of it...and then I found out that it's no longer available.

What makes it unfortunate, obviously, is that it's an incredibly good album. Much like their (also sold out) debut EP, You've Been Kind, Make Yourself Warm brings together all kinds of different sounds in a way that sounds completely new. In fact, whereas their debut had hints of other bands, on their sophomore release Gramercy Riffs seem to have settled into their own sound quite nicely. Songs like "Young Hearts" and "One By One" are definitely theirs; you're not likely to listen to them and find yourself spotting all the influences. Make Yourself Warm is just an excellent album from a band that definitely deserves to be heard by a wider audience.

What that really means, though, is that if you're in Toronto, Montreal or Ottawa, it's absolutely imperative that you catch Gramercy Riffs at the end of this month when they do a short tour with the even more amazing Rah Rah. You'll need to check the Riffs' website to find where they're playing in those first two cities, but I can tell you that the Ottawa show will be Saturday, February 27th at Cafe Dekcuf.



They'll be joined here by Centretown Cripplers and In Antarctica. For just $8, it's guaranteed to be one of the best shows of the month.

Also guaranteed to be a good show:



Tomorrow night (Saturday, February 6th) at Dekcuf, it'll be Modernboys Moderngirls, The Allrights and Burn Planetarium. That's three outstanding bands, all for the low price of $7. Don't miss it!

There's something wonderfully simple and straightforward about Red Mass. Whereas too often I find myself struggling to figure out how I'd classify and describe a band, in Red Mass' case I know exactly where I'd place them musically: squarely alongside the likes of Hot Snakes and Rocket From The Crypt. As the band's new-ish self-titled EP demonstrates, Red Mass specializes in the same sort of slightly dirty, moderately punky garage rock that those two other bands trafficked in.

This comes as no surprise. After all, the band is a Montreal supergroup of sorts, featuring former and current members of the likes of CPC Gangbangs, Demon's Claws, Hot Springs, Black Feelings and Sunday Sinners, among many others, all of whom could also be classified in roughly the same manner. So they don't exactly try and stretch themselves.

Not that they need to, of course. Songs like "Success For Crime" and "I'm On Fire" suggest that the band knows exactly how they want to sound -- and, more importantly, that they have no problem nailing that sound time and time again. It may not be all that complex, but it sure is extremely fun.

Your feelings towards Sage, the latest album from The Pinecones, will likely be dictated by your tolerance of pop that's heavily influenced by British Invasion bands. If you love them and wish there were more modern acts like those, then you're going to be over the moon about songs like "I Think You're Blind (Starlit One)" and "M'Marigold". Conversely, if you're one of those people who "hates" The Beatles, you're probably going to want nothing to do with anything on this album.

I'm somewhere in between those two extremes. On the one hand, there really isn't much in the way of innovation on this album; Sage could legitimately be confused for a lost album of the '60s, since there's nothing on it that indicates that the last forty-five years ever happened.

On the other hand, though, there's no denying that Brent Randall has a knack for coming up with memorable melodies. "Tea Tonight", in particular, is one of the catchier songs I've heard so far this year, and I haven't been able to shake it from my head for the past week. While that, by itself, isn't enough to make me recommend Sage unless you're already predisposed towards this type of music, I can say that if this sort of thing turns your crank, you're guaranteed to love it.

Miss Emily Brown, In Technicolour (Self-released)

WHO

Vancouver Island folkie songstress.

DISCOGRAPHY

Part Of You Pours Out of Me (Self-released, 2008)
In Technicolour (Self-released, 2010)

IN A NUTSHELL

In Technicolour is a gorgeous, adventurous masterpiece.

THE STORY

I'd be lying if I said I had any kind of expectations for In Technicolour, the new album from Miss Emily Brown. After all, even though I apparently loved her last outing, Part of You Pours Out Of Me, I can't honestly remember a thing about it. I don't doubt that I really liked it when I heard it, but over the ensuing seven months or so, it's gotten lost in a deluge of constant new music.

I don't see In Technicolour suffering the same fate. Or, at the very least, I really hope that it doesn't, because it's an exceptional album.

What makes it so exceptional is Brown's knack for jumping from style to style in a way that sounds totally natural. Take, just as an example, the album's first two tracks, "Septuagesima" and "The Diary of Amy Briggs". The former is downtempo electronic pop, reminiscent of acts like Frou Frou or a slightly louder version of Portishead. The latter is straightforwardly old school folk music -- essentially "Septuagesima"'s diametric opposite. Yet Brown is so talented (and both songs are so good) that you don't even notice what could, in lesser hands, be a jarring contrast.

It's this seamless contrast and consistent quality that defines the album. Regardless of whether Brown is singing along with a music box (on the album's best track, the haunting "To Make Love Stay"), showing off her jazzy side (the title track) or hinting at a Bjork influence ("Ten Years Older"), she's consistently able to go wherever her artistic muse takes her, and sound incredible in the process. I suppose that could be the album's downside -- that it all seems to flow together into one exceptionally good song, making it difficult to turn it off at any point other than the end.

Of course, as flaws go, that's one that most artists would kill for. But it's about the only thing I can find wrong with In Technicolour -- which, really, means that Miss Emily Brown has come out with one heck of a sophomore album.

Want to win In Technicolour? Thanks to Miss Emily Brown, i(heart)music has a copy to give away. To enter to win a digital copy, just e-mail me your name from a valid e-mail address by next Monday, and I'll randomly pick a winner!

Angela F. wins a copy of Basia Bulat's newest album. Thanks to all who entered!

There's good news and bad news when it comes to If I Don't Come Home You'll Know I'm Gone, the newest album from The Wooden Sky. I'll start with the good: frontman Gavin Gardiner no longer sounds like Chad Kroeger. Admittedly, I may have been the only person in the world who listened to When Lost at Sea and came away with that impression, but as far as I'm concerned, that's a huge plus. It was awfully hard to focus on whatever good qualities the band may have had when I constantly expected them to break out into a twangy rendition of "This Is How You Remind Me". (And as a sidenote related to that linked review: thankfully Gardiner didn't try to kill me when we finally met. He just tried to punch me in the crotch.)

Unfortunately, that gives way to the bad: without that bizarre voice, to me the band just sounds like your standard country-rock band. While there are certainly a few standout tracks on If I Don't Come Home... (particularly slower songs like "Angels", "Oslo" and "An Evening Hymn", wherein the band incorporates a bit of a soft rock vibe), taken as a whole it just feels a little run of the mill. Given my Gardiner-Kroeger confusion, of course, I could be totally wrong on that (here's the review for anyone who wants a more positive spin on the album), but ultimately, there's just nothing on here that really draws me in.

I'm just going to post a few quick things on this semi-lovely Sunday afternoon.

First, if you haven't been checking it out, go check out The Balconies' tour and photo blog .



The band is off for the next few days as they drive out to the Maritimes, so be sure to check out all the photos and videos they've make along the way! (And, of course, if you're in one of those cities, go check them out!)

Secondly, a quick reminder to everyone in Ottawa that this:



...is this Saturday (February 6th) at Cafe Dekcuf! I know from firsthand experience that both Modernboys Moderngirls and The Allrights are outstanding live bands, while Burn Planetarium's self-titled EP is good enough that I'm willing to bet that they're going to set the bar pretty high starting the night off (download "Death Death Death). It's all only $7, so it should be a really fun night!

Lastly, I'm very excited to announce the following show:



...for Saturday, February 27th at Cafe Dekcuf! It's got one band (Rah Rah) that made one of my favourite albums of the last decade (download "I've Got Faith"). It's got another that made one of my favourite albums of last year (that'd be Centretown Cripplers). It's got a third band that I've never seen live, but whom that aforementioned second band collectively swear are the best thing in the world (Gramercy Riffs. And it's got a band that I know not too much about, but I know that they're Newfies, which makes this an East Coast-heavy bill, which is always a recipe for fun (In Antarctica). It's all only $8, which is a bargain when you consider the sheer quality of bands playing. It's going to be an awesome show, so, again, don't skip it!

I'm really not sure what to write about Wants To Try Something, the new album from Oh No Forest Fires. And not for the usual reasons, either; whereas I usually say that when I don't know what to write, in this case, I'm saying it because there's just too much, and I don't know where to begin.

The obvious place to start, I suppose, is to mention it's the band's last album. ONFF anounced they were breaking up over the holidays, and they played their final show last Friday. Wants to Start Something represents one last creative outpouring, a hastily assembled (free) goodbye to the far-too-small number of people who had grown to love the band.

Even if it was quickly thrown together, however, by no means does it sound like the band just sloppily recorded a couple of half-formed ideas and called it a career. No, On No Forest Fires' last hurrah fits in squarely with the high level of quality the band established for themselves on The War On Geometry.

Of course, the big downside with ONFF on record has always been that...well, it's just them on record. To really enjoy the band, you needed to see them in concert, and Wants To Start Something has no shortage of songs that undoubtedly would've been amazing live. Tracks like "Who Will Cut Our Hair When Our Hairdresser Is Gone?" and "A Letter Of Apology To My Parents For Becoming An Alcoholic" are as fun and catchy and frenetic as anything the band has ever done, but it's hard not to imagine how much more fun and catchy and frenetic they'd be if they were accompanied by the whirling, hairy balls of energy that are (or, I guess, were) frontman Rajiv Thavanathan and drummer Adam Nimmo.

And that's what makes it difficult to know what to say about ONFF's last album. The band was always one of my favourite acts to see live, so it's sad to think that I'll never get to experience that again. (And that's compounded by the fact that, collectively, Oh No Forest Fires were one of the nicest, friendliest groups of guys you're ever likely to meet.) The world is a slightly darker place if there's not people like Rajiv running around on stage, making everyone in the audience feel as if they were experiencing the greatest rock show of their life. But if Wants to Start Something is how Oh No Forest Fires have chosen to go out, then at least they can say that they went out at their very best.

Listening to The Wild, the debut album from Pink Moth, it's not too hard to spot what's influenced band leader Ray Cammaert: a whole lot of Destroyer, along with a pinch of Neutral Milk Hotel (and, on "We Walks", a teensy bit of The Beatles). If you were to go by the old Oscar Wilde quote, the band would still be at the "talent" end of the spectrum, not the "genius" one.

That said, it's not hard to see them making the leap. After all, like those two acts the band recalls, Pink Moth has a knack for taking the weird and making it surprisingly palatable. Songs like "Minnows" and "Carnival Girl" are full of bizarre lyrics and idiosyncratic singing, but somehow, the music ties it all together in a way that sounds pretty great. I'm not sure whether it's enough to make The Wild an album that you absolutely need to hear (unless, of course, you really enjoy Destroyer and NMH), but it definitely has me watching Pink Moth, intrigued by the idea of what they night do next.

As most readers have probably noticed by now, I love The Balconies. Love, love, love them.

I love them so much, in fact, that i(heart)music is co-presenting the cross-Canada tour on which they're about to embark. If you just turn your eyes a little to the right, you'll see a tiny little jpeg. Click on it, and you'll be taken to the band's tour blog, complete with photos taken by the very talented Alex Cairncross. Check it out regularly as they chronicle their tour across the country, download "Ghost Fever", pick up a copy of the band's self-titled debut...and then go see them when they come through your town!

I never quite know what to make of the information that a member of Band X is also a touring member of a bigger, more well-known group -- after all, a lot of the time, it has no bearing on the band in question. Case in point: Young Galaxy. Steve Ramsay was a touring guitarist for Stars, which led a lot of people (myself included, at least initially) to expect Young Galaxy to sound just like that band. When they didn't, they were judged harshly, regardless of how little input Ramsay could've been expected to have had in the creation of Stars' particular sound.

Other times, though, the connection reveals a lot, and does a good job of encapsulating exactly how the band sounds. For example, when writing about Pick A Piper's self-titled debut EP, I could go on and on about the band's polyrhythmic drumming, about their nods to psychedelic pop, about all those things (capped off, naturally, with a song that roughly captures everything about them worth hearing -- in this case, "Rooms).

Or I could just say that one of the band's principal members, Brad Weber, is also touring drummer for Caribou, and that that connection has very clearly influenced how Pick A Piper sound.

Now, the latter comparison is certainly a little unfair. After all, Pick A Piper are far less into '60s-tinged psychedelia than recent-vintage Caribou, and besides that, the band also features three other members, all of whom play their own significant roles in making those polyrhythms work. But realistically, people are generally more likely to pay attention to a band they've never heard of if there's some interesting connection there -- and I'd think that being a member (even a touring member) of a Polaris Prize-winning band qualifies as an interesting connection. So if you need that, there you go, and don't forget that Pick A Piper's debut outing is more interesting than Andorra. And if you don't, then check this band out, because you're guaranteed not to be disappointed.

Basia Bulat, Heart Of My Own (Secret City)

WHO

The folk-pop pride of London, Ontario.

DISCOGRAPHY
Basia Bulat (Self-released, 2005)
Oh My Darling (Hardwood, 2007)
Heart of My Own Secret City, 2010)

IN A NUTSHELL

Basia Bulat may have been nominated for the Polaris Prize with her debut, but Heart Of My Own shows that there's a lot more where Oh My Darling came from...and then some.

THE STORY

The knock against Oh My Darling (not from me, mind you, but from some quarters) was that it didn't do anything really incredible; that it showed that Basia Bulat was comfortable with a guitar, but that she didn't do much to differentiate herself from most other girls with guitars. If you came from this line of thinking, then this criticism was somewhat validated by her cover of Sam Cooke's "Touch The Hem of His Garment", in which she showed the kind of depth and soul that some felt her debut was lacking. Of course, the alternate reading of the cover was that it just showcased some unplumbed depths, and that it gave even more reason to be excited about her second full-length.

Regardless, I suspect that Heart Of My Own will inspire a little more agreement. Simply put, it's the sound of Basia hitting her stride. It's her realizing how to write songs that not only sound good, but that also let her show just what kind of range (and soul, and depth) she's got. She's always had a stunningly good voice, but on her sophomore album, she shows just how good. She goes further into the territories of soul and gospel and country, and in the process demonstrates that she sounds great in all of them.

Take the title track, for instance. It may fall pretty clearly into the category of old school country, but it doesn't sound put-on in any way. Basia's got such an outstanding voice that it sounds wholly authentic, and -- for me, at least -- when she cuts loose on the choruses, it's impossible not to get chills. Or "Run", which could almost pass for a song from Oh My Darling...except that it sounds like Basia is joined by a host of angels for the chorus.

In fact, I'd say that this latter song best captures/represents what Heart Of My Own is all about. On song after song after song -- whether you're talking about "If Only You" or "Gold Rush" or "Once More, For The Dollhouse" -- you're left feeling as though Basia has taken what was great about her debut, tweaked it to reflect her newfound maturity, and made it into something truly exceptional.

In the process, she's rendered any criticisms about her songwriting prowess moot. Basia has made the leap to be one of Canada's top singers and songwriters, and Heart Of My Own reflects that perfectly.

Want to win Heart Of My Own? Thanks to Secret City, i(heart)music has a digital copy to give away. To enter to win, just e-mail me your name from a valid e-mail address by next Monday, and I'll randomly pick a winner!