album of the week

plants and animals

Plants and Animals - Parc Avenue
[Inertia: 2009]

Montreal breeds two things:
1. Really bendy people (it’s the home of Cirque De Soleil)
2. Really musical people (it’s the home to many freakishly good rock bands)
Plants and Animals are yet another band hailing from Montreal and naturally (or should we say: unsurprisingly) their debut record, Parc Avenue, is freakishly good.
They spin shaggy songs into expansive, genre-bending symphonies – a sprawling collection of late Sixties lush folk-psychedelia meets rootsy vocal melodies meets sumptuous orchestral flourishes. Although that may come across as ‘sub-genre overkill’, Parc Avenue is actually an incredibly cohesive album that is full of warmth and an abundance of unexpected pleasures for your ears. Each song seems to mutate during its course - from fuzzy guitar rock to slacker-blues to vague meandering flute solos and so on. Take for instance the gospel chorus of ‘Mercy’ – it starts off resembling a classic Nina Simone track, when it suddenly takes a turn into handclaps and Go! Team-like unison cheers, before finally evolving into a Bon Jovi-esque electric guitar rock out. With splashes of Neil Young, Jeff Buckley, Blitzen Trapper, Beck, Jimi Hendrix and even (dare I say it) AoTW favourite Meat Loaf, there is enough familiarity with the sound of Plants and Animals to become immediately attached, and there’s enough nuance and grit to make you listen again and again.
With blunt every day lyrics like “it takes a good friend to say you’ve got your head up your ass” (‘Bye Bye Bye’) they lack the irritating pretentiousness that some bands (e.g. Dr Dog, White Lies) subscribe to. Being “real” makes a good impression these days…
The first really good album of 2009.


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