The sprawling pop outfit from Newfoundland returns with a third album shined to a high gloss by Scottish producer Tony Doogan (Wintersleep, Mogwai), who packs Tim Baker’s compositions with more sonic noise, blurring the defined stop-start quiet-louds of Hey Rosetta past. That means it takes a couple listens for the hooks to sink in–there’s nothing as immediate as “New Goodbye” from Into Your Lungs or “The Simplest Thing” from Plan Your Escape–but they once they do, they hold tight, as when Baker sings “And we won’t look back/cause we don’t need that” on the title track, or the singalong “She coo-oo-omes” refrain on “Bandages.” There fewer hard stops, weirder patches (such as the rhythmic breathing on “Parson Brown” and a worldlier lyrical view, which makes sense considering the epic touring schedule the band has undertaken in the past few years. These are not complaints—though Seeds is a progression, it’s not a fully realized one–yet. Things are happening here, good ones.
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Hey Rosetta! in Halifax January 30
This article appears in Feb 10-16, 2011.
