Albums

< Land Of Talk
Some Are Lakes
words by Reef Younis

It’d be something of an understatement to say that Canada’s been pretty good to us musically over the last few years, and while relations have probably been perfectly amiable otherwise, their finest exports have been plucked from a consistently fertile music scene. But although it’s hard to sidestep any gushing pro-Canadian sentiment (it’s wholeheartedly deserved) you can’t escape the black and white reminders that it’s all been said before. So, what I can promise for the duration of this review is that Canadian band references will be minimal, and any comparisons to Metric on the basis that both Land of Talk and the aforementioned have female singers will be nonexistent. Except that one. Obviously.

Instead, let’s take Land of Talk on merit. Let’s talk about Elizabeth Powell’s breathy vocal and how ‘Some Are Lakes’ ebbs and flows with labouring sweetness. How her wiry vocal cradle on ‘It’s Okay’ rocks you to sleep with maternal concern or the guitar-driven conservatism of ‘The Man Who Breaks Things (Dark Shuffle)’, with its telegraphed chord changes and unabashed accessibility is comfortable and warmly familiar. It’s an album that’s by no means ingenious or overly animated but having roped in one Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver) to produce and contribute; it was never going to be a riot. What we have instead is a body of work that strikes a balance between the dreamy highs and middling lows of the Land of Talk dynamic.

It’s established early on that the show strictly belongs to Powell: her vocal permeating the unimposing indie-rock background with gentle assertion. From the brief lo-fi guitar scuffles of ‘Death by Fire’ to the lumbering close of ‘Troubled’, ‘Some Are Lakes’ is her stage and she’s given a solid platform to own it. Generally withdrawn, she creates a downbeat allure that ‘Some Are Lakes’ makes no effort to shake off, and it’s the title track that proves to be the highlight with its rudimentary guitar strums and prominently placed key changes that sum up the album’s easy-going, melodic nature.

It’s only when ‘Corner Phone’ judders into life with the first hint of a guitar solo that Powell duly responds, almost yelping with a vocal inhibition before the track closes out to a squall of frenetic strumming in Land of Talk’s only fleeting moment of restlessness. And it’s in this brief foray into a world of upbeat tempos and stabbing guitar that Powell powerfully excels. It’s her Sister Act moment where she’s transformed from the timid, unassuming little mouse to the sassy, screaming firebrand, and the catalyst for ‘Some Are Lakes’ that comes just a little too late.

6/10 in stores now