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5.0 out of 5 stars
Bring on the New Renaissance-The Hip Find Their Voice, August 11, 2007
This review is from: Road Apples (Reis) (Audio CD)
Strange that no one reviewed this particular re-issue of "Road Apples" since it is the still available Zoe Records 2004 digital re-master that boasts truly superb sound. In any event, charging out of the gate like a thoroughbred racehorse, "Road Apples" is a snapshot of Canada's Tragically Hip on the verge of hitting the big time. Long celebrated as a great road trip record, "Road Apples" is a cohesive 12 song set built on propulsive classic 70's blues rock riffs imprinted by Gordon Downie's quirky yet fluid vocal delivery. "Little Bones", "Twist My Arm" and "Cordelia" form a triptych of tightly wound rockers that uncoil from your speakers like caged rattlesnakes. The Hip on "Road Apples", spin tales of teen angst, bitter jealousy, small town boredom, impassioned violence, disconnectedness and of dancing perilously close to the precipice between life and death. Only on the last songs ("Fiddler's Green, and "The Last of the Unplucked Gems"), do the Hip pause to catch their breath, slow down the tempo and pronounce tongue in cheek, "This is what we think they mean."
That a young band so candidly revealed that they were "pretty dumb" and that they really did not have the correct answers to any of the perplexing events they sang about was insightful. That The Tragically Hip combined these expressions of doubt with straight ahead killer melodic hard rock, makes "Road Apples" a near perfect musical photograph of youth in all its' reckless, self-absorbed, and irrepressible glory. Road Apples is The Hip at a confusing and yet wondrous time when they found their uniquely Canadian voice and offered glimpses of where that new found voice had the potential of going. An essential Canadian rock masterpiece!
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