It was an old high school friend that tipped me off to Elliott Brood close to two decades ago. I haven’t seen Jeff in the flesh for many, many years but we’ve long been friends on the Facebook and at some point in the 2000s, he posted on his page about his cousin Casey’s band. I was mildly curious so I checked out their website. Their self-description as ‘death country’ made me laugh enough to give their debut long player, “Ambassador”, a listen and the rest, as they say, was history.
The trio of Mark Sasso, Stephen Pitkin, and Casey Laforet formed in Toronto in 2002, a few years before that fateful Facebook post. I’ve since found much to like in their alternative folk/country/rock over the years, have seen them live a couple of times, and would jump at the chance to do so again. By my count, they’ve released six studio long players and a bunch of EPs, including 2023’s “Town” and 2024’s “Country”, which were collected together to form one super album last year.
Today’s song, though, comes care of their last full-length album, “Keeper”. Of track two, Casey Laforet fully admitted that it was inspired by an old mandolin that he bought in St John’s, Newfoundland, that he calls ‘Old Smokey’. He hadn’t picked the instrument up in a while but when he finally did, “Stay out” simply burst forth into existence. He says that he doesn’t think the song could have or would have been written on a guitar. It was ‘Old Smokey’s tale to tell. Indeed, the mandolin strum is prominent and alive in the song. But so too are the foot stomps and hand claps* and for that we can only be eternally grateful.
“I got healthy kids and a beautiful wife
But I don’t wanna go home
I’m proud and thankful and terrified
But I don’t wanna go home”
“Stay out” is a joyful sounding number despite its not-so-joyful lyrics. Sometimes everything appears to be going well on the outside but things are not quite right on the inside. Thankfully, we have songs like this that make it all feel alright and we can get up to stomp it all out.
Thanks, Old Smokey. And you too, Elliott Brood.
*Both are sounds that the band went to great lengths to include on “Keeper”.
For the rest of the Best tunes of 2020 list, click here.
If you’ve been following along, you might have guessed this album to be here at number one, given its conspicuous absence thus far.
I’ve been a fan of The Cure for many years, close to four decades in fact. Yeah, I’m aging myself here but what can you do? I first got into the post-punk legends led by Robert Smith when I was in high school, shortly after the release of their seminal album, 1989’s “Disintegration“. Alternative music became a passion amongst me and a few friends, with each of us introducing the others to the latest bands, in a time before the internet. I’m pretty sure it was my friend John* that shared “Disintegration”, along with early singles compilation “Staring at the sea”, both of which I dutifully dubbed to blank cassette and quickly wore out from playing.
When “Wish” came out in 1992**, I wasted no time in purchasing it for my burgeoning CD collection and obviously played it to death. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for 1996’s “Wild mood swings” on either count. I did try to make amends with “Bloodflowers” in 2000*** but that was mostly because I had bought tickets to finally see the band live with my youngest sibling for that tour. I still don’t believe I have heard an ounce of either of the two albums Robert Smith and company released between that album and this year’s release.
All that to say, I certainly wasn’t expecting a new Cure album to be my favourite album of the year when the calendar turned to 2024 last January. But it certainly is and I’ll tell you why.
It could be just me but Robert Smith seems a completely different musician and person than he was in the early 2000s. I remember seeing them for that aforementioned show for the “Bloodflowers” tour and walking away disappointed. The setlist seemed more designed for him than for the audience. Contrast that with the next time I saw the group at Osheaga in 2013, when organizers had to pull the plug to get them to leave the stage, and even then, they performed “Boys don’t cry” without sound. I’ve heard that this is pretty much how all his shows go now. Playing everything he thinks his fans want to hear and having a great time doing it. And he’s been touring lots without releasing anything new for years, though the rumours of new material have been swirling faster and faster of late.
“Songs of a lost world”, The Cure’s 14th long player was finally released in November and it explodes through the speakers. It exudes all this passion that Smith performs with while on stage. People talk about how Cure albums waffle between goth records and pop records but this one feels like it nestles and nuzzles itself snuggly in between both. It is big and bold and is unabashedly The Cure.
At just eight songs, our number one album feels way too short, like we wouldn’t have minded it go on for another 45 minutes at least. However, Robert Smith has assured us that he’s got enough material in the can for a few more albums to come soon. Until then, let’s listen to this again and again and you could do worse than go with any of these, my three picks for you.
“Alone”: “This is the end of every song that we sing.” Quite the line to start off an album with. Indeed, it’s the first line on the first song and the first single to be released off the album. And that it comes just shy of the three and a half minute mark of a nearly seven minute song and that it just happens to be the first piece of new music to be released by The Cure in 16 years is both heartbreaking and beautiful. Of course, this was not random. Robert Smith knew he needed a great line to open the album and it might very well have been the reason that the long promised album kept getting pushed back. He’s readily admitted that once this line was written, the rest of the album fell easily into place. And this line, this song, is well worth all the waiting. The sweeping and trudging and haunting darkness that prefaces these words is simply gorgeous, so easy to get wrapped up in, that you almost don’t want any vocals to appear, that they might mar the perfection in some way. But of course, Smith doesn’t let this happen. His words, morose, moody, satisfied, whatever, they make the perfection even more so. How does it get better? Read on friends.
“All I ever am”: “My weary dance with age and resignation moves me slow, toward a dark and empty stage where I can sing of all I know.” The penultimate track on the album sounds like Mr. Smith reflecting on his mortality. But he does so with panache and in a way that only The Cure can do it. Of course, it’s morbid and morose, but it’s also set against an aggressive and tribal beat and haunting synths, ambulance sirens and elevated heart rhythms. There’s soaring guitars demanding to be forefront and twinkling keys content to take the back seat. It’s all very big and epic and romantic. And begs for more.
“A fragile thing”: “Don’t tell me how you miss me, I could die tonight of a broken heart.” This line and so many like it in this song is heartbreaking. The whole song is heartbreaking. Heartbreaking and truthful and real and beautiful. A song about a relationship in trouble, love when love is not enough, love that hurts, a relationship whose story is linear and long foretold. And the music is just as haunting. Menacing keys from an early eighties slasher flick, set against shimmering and blinding cymbals, and a foreboding bass line, the kind that keeps you up at night, cold sweat from a nightmare, reaching for comfort but only finding an indentation where a warm body should be. This is the kind of Cure single we’ve been waiting a couple of decades for and we are more than grateful to be able to crank it up and let all soak over us. Over and over and over again.
*Or maybe it was Tim?
**It was also around this time that I purchased an original pressing of “Mixed up” on vinyl. Sadly, I lost that one to one of my younger siblings when I moved away to university. I’ve since purchased a reissue.
***Thankfully, it was a better album than its predecessor.
I hope those of you that have been following along this mini-series of my favourite albums from last year. I am going to try to get back into a rhythm and a regular schedule after this. For those of you who haven’t been following along, here are the previous albums in this list that you’ve missed:
Unlike the last three albums up to this point, albums by bands that have yet to be featured in any of my Best albums lists, those of you who might have come across this site before might have seen words written about the band behind this next album.
Ride.
I feel like I have loved them forever, even though I know it’s only really been just over thirty years. I’ve already shared words on these pages about my introduction to the group via a dubbed cassette of their sophomore album from my friend Tim and that anthemic first track, “Leave them all behind“.
I didn’t know it at the time but the quartet had formed six years earlier and were already on the downward trajectory from being the poster boys and the most commercially successful act of the group of bands lumped together under the pejorative moniker ‘shoegaze’*. Their third and fourth albums saw diminishing returns and the band split in 1996, none of the four members looking back.
After their magical reunion in 2014 and subsequent tours, albums started appearing from the Ride camp. Despite early concerns about where or how these would fit within their historic back catalogue, I really liked each of the new post-reunion albums. Indeed, 2019’s “This is not a safe place” appeared at number four on my Best albums list for that year. And now here we are, just over four years later, and their latest is my second favourite album of 2024 and is vying heavily to be in consideration for favourite by the group.
Mark Gardener, Andy Bell, Steve Queralt, and Loz Colbert, much like their contemporaries in the five members of Slowdive, seem to be improving as a group with every release. They are not rehashing their glory days, nor are they ignoring it. They are embracing what people loved about them back then and building upon it and they are just have a blast recording and playing together again.
Each of these twelve tracks are so excellent and are worth your time, but especially these three that I’ve picked for you. Put on some headphones and thank me later.
“Monaco”: “Broken by this country, we get smashed into pieces. Better take these pills ’cause everything’s for sale.” According to songwriter Mark Gardener, it was inspired by his realization and anger at all the financial troubles he was seeing around him. The name that had been assigned to it during demo tracking was purely coincidental but it fit, so Gardener worked it into the lyrics, taking aim at the perceived rich community in south California. It kicks off with a drum machine and uses synths to push the stuffed envelope forward. It’s bright and full of energy and shimmers like a strobe personified. All four members sound alive in their passion, overtaking the programming with their crashing cymbals, a muscular bass that Hooky would be proud of, and some Marr-like jangly arpeggios thrown in for good measure.
“Last night I went somewhere to dream“: “Running from a life that’s running out of time, believing in a future that won’t be yours or mine.” I’ve heard some voices out there question whether this classic shoegaze band can still be termed ’shoegaze’ in the classic sense. But listening to this track over and over again, I find myself thinking that I don’t care at all what you term them. This is a song that this band wouldn’t have made and probably wouldn’t have been able to make thirty-five odd years ago. Hammering drums pounding deep into your soul and the bass line a foreboding rumble of distant thunder. Sustained keys punctuating and echoing all over the place. Gardener’s vocals are assured and beg to be sung along with and Bell seems only so happy to add his voice and jangly guitars to the proceeedings. The song is dreamy, yeah, but it is also rich in dreaming for the future and is hopeful and beautiful.
“Peace sign”: “Give me a peace sign, throw your hands in the air. Give me a peace sign, let me know you’re there.” Ah yes, Peace Sign. The opening number does its job with verve and excitement and exuding all the passion you might expect from a bunch of fresh-faced youngsters, not these battle hardened veterans. But there it is. Bell’s guitars thunder up and down and Loz keeps the pace frenetic and peppy, albeit with the help of some programming. But what I love most about this track is the dual attack vocals of Bell and Gardener, harkening back to the early days when they took this approach due to less confidence. But here, the two working together and harmonizing beautifully is a massive vote of optimism. “Give me a peace sign.” Yeah. Give us all a peace sign in these crazy and chaotic times. We need more music like this.
*For fans of this alt rock subgenre, I highly recommend the 331/3 genre series instalment written by Ryan Pinkard based interviews with everyone who’s everyone that was involved in the original scene. I read it just after the new year. Excellent stuff.
We’ll be back in a handful of days with album #1. In the meantime, here are the previous albums in this list:
My (life in) music lists 