I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE TRAGICALLY HIP-In Between Evolution (2004).

The Hip are still putting out solid rock records.  And “evolution” is a good word in the title, for the Hip are clearly no longer the band they were.  And yet there is a sense they are returning to something…if not their own roots necessarily, perhaps a more basic sound.

The opener, “Heaven is a Better Place Today” is so upbeat it’s almost shocking.  It’s bouncy and catchy with some very cool riffs.  It’s followed by “Summer’s Killing Us, a raucous, rocker with another great chorus.

This album has some of my favorite tracks of recent Hip albums.  The best song on the album is “Gus: The Polar Bear from Central Park.” Between the riff and the way Downie sings the song, it’s got a brooding intensity that I can’t resist.  “Vaccination Scar” has a really rocking slide guitar.  And it continues in the vein of the album in which the band sounds more like Pearl Jam than R.E.M.

“It Can’t Be Nashville Every Night” is another song that sounds typically Hip and yet with a bit more oomph.  Even some of the later tracks (tracks which tend to be less than stellar on Hip discs–am I wrong?) are really strong.

“Makeshift We Are” has a great stuttery quality to the chorus, and “You’re Everywhere” has an unending power with a great chorus.  “Mean Streak” sounds like a pretty typical Hip song until about half way through when it throws in a minor chord break that really surprises.

“The Heart of the Melt” and “One Night in Copenhagen” are two late album tracks that are short and urgent.  “Melt” is a speedy loud rocker and “Copenhagen” screams along until it comes to a catchy end.

This isn’t really a return to the Hip’s roots, but it is a return to an urgency that the Hips early albums possessed.

[READ: February 16, 2011] “If Things Happen for a Reason”

This story starts in a fairly shocking way: the narrator wakes up from blacking out to hear a man she doesn’t know saying that their kids will laugh over this someday.

We pull back to see that the woman was in a bicycle accident (face first into the pavement–ouch) and the man helped her up and brought her to a hospital.  The story proceeds with his declaration and her belief that indeed, they will have kids together (even though she hadn’t met him before that moment).

Her family believes she is too young for anything like that so she hides him from them.  Eventually the truth comes out and she introduces him.  And they settle down into a happy stability (even if they can’t always pay their bills on time).

The the story shocks us again about mid way through, by telling us that her husband died unexpectedly and violently (not a spoiler).  It smashes the picture frame of the happy family that O’Leary has built.  When she reveals the reality behind his death, the story shocks us for the third time.

It’s a very sad story, but one that is very well told and quite affecting.