Noise 101: CD reviews for March 7
Dido
Girl Who Got Away
Sony
Score: C
Dido has been a nice female face on the boring side of her equivalent of the dad rock genre for some time now. While her music has been reserved for dinner parties, brunch, lite rock radio stations and other white people fascinations, it always had a home. Girl Who Got Away is going to fit right in there, which shouldn’t be surprising. It is another album filled with moderately catchy tunes that would be more passable if the lyrics accompanying them weren’t so dreadfully boring. Though there are spots that clearly have more attention than others, like Kendrick Lamar’s guest spot on “Let Us Move On,” this is album will only be in the same sentence as “great” if the other words are “album to buy your mom for her car ride around the city”.
— Nathan Ross
Shotgun Jimme
Everything, Everything
Pidgeon Row
Score: B+
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: artist takes to a cabin in the woods years after his latest release. All he has in this cabin (this time, located in Manitoba) is his guitar, his words, his soul and presumably a whole lot of alcohol as he mends what might be a broken heart. Here’s the twist with Shotgun Jimmie: the album doesn’t whine about it. Instead, Everything, Everything is a punch back on the scene as Jimmie, who also spent the time in between records touring with John K. Samson, is more fun than its recording process would lead you to believe. Back again is his in-your-face guitar, which make the tracks get stuck in your head in a way that won’t let go. Shotgun Jimmie takes on the harshest winter in his Manitoba escape, and comes out with an album that screams why Canadians thrive in the cold.
— Gregory Frank
Wildlife
On The Heart
Indoor Recess Inc.
Score: C+
Had Wildfire’s On The Heartbeen released a few years ago, it would likely be getting a higher mark. The Toronto rockers do a lot of things right on their album, but unfortunately they don’t stand out from a whole lot of new emerging artists (not only from Toronto but other places). They have a solid, clean rock sound similar to that of Kings of Leon and to a lesser extent Dinosaur Bones, but haven’t given any major reasons why the name Wildlife should jump to mind when thinking about great bands in this genre. On The Heart just seems a little late to the party, which is unfortunate given that it is a solid album that can garner a few listens before getting old. Had this been back before the turn of the decade, it would have been a much fresher sound that would draw new listeners in. Now, it seems just a routine album for people who are looking for a fix in between The Hold Steady albums.
— Nathan Ross
