Infinite jest

This week's new releases caught me offguard, as I was still in holiday mode, and fully focused on the January 23rd date for the first wave of releases of the year. There's some truth to that, but to ignore this week would mean missing this long (long) player from Canadian power-pop legends Sloan. They do love to have fun with their album titles, and Never Hear The End Of It clocks in at over 76 minutes with 30 tracks total, but the end does come, and you'll find yourself hitting play once again.

Album: Sloan - Never Hear The End of It

It figures that Sloan would make a big album like this, as they're best albums have been 70's-rock-ambitious like this (One Chord to Another, Navy Blues) and this one takes it to it's ultimate progression. An album with this many songs can try one's patience (and this is one is no different to some degree,) but it's so diverse in it's reverence for Rock and Roll with only a few misteps that it's worth the effort. It veers from KISS to Big Star to AC/DC to The Beatles seemlessly. Seriously... the songs run into each other like Abbey Road, some clocking in as short as 52 seconds, and there are so many great hooks, it's nearly impossible to highlight just a few. But I will anyway - "Can't You Figure It Out?" and "Fading into Obscurity" are definitely one's to check out, if you can't hack the full 30-track endeavor.

tags: music, album review, sloan, power pop, indie rock, canada, rhapsody