New Music

That’s clearly no longer the case. My homegrown fave from the past few months is oddly named band Human Highway’s debut disc, the oddly titled Moody Motorcycle. Ignore the goofy cover and savour the heavenly harmonies created by this duo. Ontario singer-songwriter Jim Guthrie and Montrealer Nick Thorburn, who fronts the hipster band Islands, craft melodic acoustic numbers that sound like a mash-up of the Everly Brothers and early ’70s Paul Simon.

I’ve always thought of B.C.’s 54-40 as one of the country’s most underrated bands. The group has been around for close to three decades and, since they’ve rarely strayed anywhere near whatever was the mindless trend of the day, they’ve never been nearly as popular as they deserve to be. That’s not likely to change with their fine new album, Northern Soul. The disc is all over the map, veering from REM-like jangly numbers to New Orderesque electro-flavoured pop. The title track is one mighty moving antiwar dirge, built around the heart-wrenching chorus, “War … has taken away our son. And whatever happened to … love your brother, love your sister, one another.”

Wake Up and Say Goodbye, David Usher’s sixth solo album, is his punchiest yet, hearkening back to the hard-driving pop of his old band Moist. I just wish he didn’t try to go for the big-screen anthemic thing on so many tracks.

Montreal alt-rock band the Stills, sadly, continue to flounder on their third album, Oceans Will Rise, seemingly unable to decide if they want to be Echo and the Bunnymen or U2. It’s a tragic thing to be mired in a 1982 identity crisis.

Also worth a spin: Toronto club vet Divine Brown’s The Love Chronicles, an old-school trip through the last three decades of soul stylings, and Montreal singer-songwriter Ian Kelly’s Speak Your Mind, deceptively simple acoustic songs built around Kelly’s distinctive voice.