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Land of Talk

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Some Are Lakes
Released: Oct 7, 2008
Label: Saddle Creek

After more than two years of touring for their debut release, and having gained and lost a few members, Land of Talk retired to their hometown of Montreal to roll tape on a batch of new songs. ... Continue[+]

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After more than two years of touring for their debut release, and having gained and lost a few members, Land of Talk retired to their hometown of Montreal to roll tape on a batch of new songs.

Singer/songwriter/guitarist Elizabeth Powell set about making an album that could encompass a great deal with very little, an aesthetic in stark contrast to the orchestral pop and digi-tweaked indie chic. With bassist Chris McCarron and drummer Andrew Barr (The Slip), the band set up in an old converted church outside of Montreal and recorded 9 songs with the helping hands of Justin Vernon (Bon Iver). The tenth and final track Troubled was recorded in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, at Vernons parents' home.

Land of Talk isnt so banal as to pretend that a new album is a departure, or a disconnected effort from the last. Theres a longer narrative at work here and this isnt some paint-by-numbers pop. Its simply a continuation of the internal conversation Powell has been holding with herself since she began this musical lark, more than a decade ago, with a 14 year-olds creaky-voiced acuteness, spouting the uncomfortable truths of a woman thrice her years and many times more guarded.

The album opener, Yuppy Flu, and the two songs that follow, Death By Fire and The Man Who Breaks Things (Dark Shuffle), are stealthy nods to Land of Talks much ballyhooed debut EP Applause Cheer Boo Hiss. Powell is as unrelenting in her appraisal of the world as shes ever been, and its a world as pitiably venal as it is lovingly rendered. These songs might easily have sat in tandem with the urgent rawness of the EP tracks but with Powells sense of story and Vernons fresh perspective, they find better use on the new album.  Here they set a perfect bridge from the jangling dissonance and ferocious doubled voicings of the debut, towards the road-weathered clarity and reflectiveness she has now begun to own so fullya narrative string from there, to here, and beyond. When the titular track hits four songs in, its clear why Some Are Lakes is the albums anthem call, as much a nostalgic tramp through summers past and love unending as a backhand ode to the very album it appears on. Its a statement of intent with a sea change at its heart. It started at a summer lake / a sentence and a name / If only for a moments sake/ We called it and it came Powell sings. The fierce spotlight of Powells attention points inward and has begun exposing a more private side of the nascent iconoclast. Theres nothing fragile in it. The honesty makes it steel. That in itself is a kind wonder. Where once one might have questioned whether Powell was shielding herself under the gauze and frenzy of her music, songs like Its Okay, with its Afghan Whigs-inspired soul, and the alt-country amble of Troubled prove that she is ready to strike at the heart of even her own cherished conceits, and come out of it fresh, fighting fit and game for putting herself on the line in the spirit of true musical confession.

As a portent of things to come Some Are Lakes is nothing short of inspiring. On its own merits, its simply striking. The simplest things are the hardest to make.

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Applause Cheer Boo Hiss
Released: N/A
Label: The Rebel Group

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