A Look at the Polaris Long List: 34. Shooting Guns – Born To Deal In Magic: 1952-1976

I was actually really digging the dirty instrumental rock sound of Shooting Guns‘ Born To Deal In Magic: 1952-1976 album a lot. My (semi-)contemporary rock references might not always be on point but my best guess is, if you dig Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Jesus and Mary Chain, or Spiritualized, you might could wanna check this out. I didn’t vote for this on my short list but I wouldn’t be mad if it made the cut. Solid!

A Look at the Polaris Long List: 31. Joel Plaskett Emergency – Scrappy Happiness

I have it on good advice that Joel Plaskett Emergency is a staple of Canadian sub-genre of rock known as dock rock (is having a song titled “Harbour Boys” an acknowledgement of this fact, I wonder??). At various points Scrappy Happiness reminded me of J. Geils Band, Tom Petty, a mellow version of Everclear and (I’m being extremely charitable here) Nick Lowe. It had it’s moments and was well-produced but overall, this wasn’t really my bag. Stream every track from the album on Joel’s site here or make it easy for yourself and subscribe to RDIO and check it out in one easy-to-use player below:

A Look at the Polaris Long List: 12. Cœur de Pirate – Blonde

More Francophone pop courtesy of Cœur de Pirate, the alter ego of 22 year old, super-tattooed Béatrice Martin. Think a modern take on the 60’s chanteuse-style pop like Françoise Hardy, as channeled via Adele (or something…). Stella Artois should look into maybe licensing one of her tracks for their throwback, continental style TV commercials. Just sayin’….

Bonus (not on the Blonde album):

MP3 Download: Coeur De Pirate – Wicked Games (The Weeknd Cover) | Alt. download link: MP3

A Look at the Polaris Long List: 4. Avec pas d’casque – Astronomie

I can’t say I really can give the Francophone albums like this one a fair shake because of the language barrier, years of middle, high school and college French be damned. That being said music (and love) are truly the universal languages and you can still feel the emotion conveyed in a voice even if you don’t understand the language the lyrics are written in and that’s no less the case with Astonomie. Musically this is far more than just competent but as even more folky, country-tinged indie music, wasn’t sure this was superlative, unique-sounding or ground-breaking enough to be considered a serious contender to be either shortlisted or a Polaris winner. I did like the track “Deux Colleys” a lot though. Hit the Bandcamp above to see for yourself and drop a comment with your thoughts.

A Look at the Polaris Long List: 20. Fucked Up Album – David Comes to Life

This was a frustrating album to listen to for me. Prior Polaris Prize winner, Fucked Up‘s David Comes to Life is a period ‘rock opera’ set in a fictional English town called Byrdesdale Spa in the 1970s/80s. If that’s not already enough to make you say, ‘Huh?’ trying to follow along with the story by simply listening to the album will likely only lead to even more frustration for you. Lead singer, Damian Abraham‘s endless shout-yelling singing style on every track renders any nuance within the narrative or character exploration of this four act musical work kind of moot. I actually thought the album was pretty amazing from a purely musical point of view, possibly on par as a commercial proposition with Green Day‘s mega-hit concept American Idiot album, but the vocals kinda ruined it for me. Damn shame. With some ‘regular’ singing this coulda been a contender….