Darker Circles
- The Sadies
- Outside Music
Someone needed to bridge the dark gap between Pink Floyd and Blue Rodeo, and the job couldn't have gone to a band better equipped to handle the job than the Sadies. On the autumnal Darker Circles (a worthy follow-up to 2007's New Seasons), the Toronto cosmic-roots troopers tell moodily of the passage of time and life's final hours. Another Year Again is a songwriting success - the closest the Sadies have come to Blue Rodeo yet, though the track ends with a psychedelic sprint through the cornfield. At times, the singing is ordinary - Kut Corners cries out for a Neko Case - but that's only a small complaint. On an album about departures, the disc-closing instrumental 10 More Songs (in which one imagines Peter Fonda and Clint Eastwood both eyeing that last piece of peyote, to a Morricone soundtrack) points to more things to come. Look forward to it.
The Sadies begin a Canadian tour in London, Ont., on May 21.
Brad Wheeler