August 27, 2010
North of Northwest: The Sadies

The Sadies ::: Photo Courtesy of Yep Roc Records
The Sadies are the flagship band of the Toronto alt-country scene, a hardworking foursome with twelve years, thirteen albums, and numerous high profile collaborations under their tooled-leather belts. Exclaim calls them “a national treasure,” and every other Canadian band I hear interviewed has toured with them, is about to tour with them, or would like to tour with them. All of this might explain why their relatively unexceptional new album, Darker Circles, is on the Polaris Prize short list: perhaps the jury simply feels that it’s The Sadies’ time.
Now, Darker Circles isn’t a bad album. It could reasonably be described as “solid” all the way through, and a couple of tracks - the ghostly, reverberating “The Quiet One” and the epic lyrical poem “Violet and Jeffrey Lee” - are markedly lovely. For the most part, though, the fare is standard noir country, mournful lyrics of fear and regret laid atop classic country instrumental stylings and darkened up with a touch of moody psychedelia. It’s a style that quite a few bands are working in right now, and though The Sadies put forth a notably honed and polished version of it, Darker Circles doesn’t seem to offer any musical breakthroughs or point to any new directions for the genre.
My most noticeable impression of Darker Circles, in fact, was that after a dozen listens I had barely any impression at all. Had you asked me what I thought of it, you would have received a vague “It’s nice” in reply. “Very country,” I might have expanded. “Kind of dark.” Specific details of the album still elude my recall; my memories consist mostly of snippets of melody and hazy mental images.
The Polaris Prize is awarded for “creative artistic achievement in recorded music.” I hope to see a truly groundbreaking album take home the prize, something challenging and exciting like last year’s winner The Chemistry of Modern Life. Darker Circles may deserve a place in the dedicated alt-country fan’s catalog, but I can’t honestly believe that it’s going to change any lives or radically alter the future of Canadian music. Look elsewhere for the 2010 honoree.
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