Montreal-based Land of Talk's first full-length album, Some Are Lakes, is a fabulously lush and quintessentially Canadian outing from this fab indie rock trio. Featuring the guitar and vocals of Broken Social Scene's newest member, Elizabeth Powell, in addition to Chris McCarron on bass and Eric Thibodeau on drums, this stripped down band produces an intense sound that's impossible to ignore.
Strange as it may seem to American audiences whose indie rockers are often backed by corporate sponsors, the group received funding for their album from the Canada Council for the Arts, suggesting that their sound is actually representative of the country as a whole. With jangling, guitar mountains on “Give Me Back My Heart Attack” jutting up against the melancholy ocean of “It's Okay,” the album convincingly stands as a super-condensed atlas of Canada's multiple landscapes, both physical and sonic.
Balancing the highs with the lows and effortlessly switching between genres, Land of Talk is brilliant at changing the pace and keeping its audience on its toes. Occasionally sounding favourably like Metric's Emily Haines (herself a former Broken Social Scenester), Powell has a fantastic voice that is nicely showcased on the album's final tune, “Troubled.” The down-tempo, bilingual country-westernish ditty sounds hauntingly familiar, like a long-lost Patsy Cline song, allowing Powell's voice to tremble delicately amidst an acoustic guitar and trombone arrangement. Even for those averse to Calgary and cowboys, this is one of the album's finest moments, like slipping into the sea at the end of a long cross-country journey.
--Laura Roberts [November 2, 2008]
