Commonwealth (Yep Roc)

--taken from: The Waterloo Region Record

by Michael Barclay

Sloan titled their 2008 album "Parallel Play", a term for toddlers who have yet to learn how to interact, who play side by side. It was a self-deprecating dig at the fact that Sloan's four members were increasingly working in isolation, developing their own individual visions independent of each other while still in the same band. On 2011's "The Double Cross", however, Sloan had never sounded so collaborative and coherent; it was a hands-down highlight in their 20-year discography.

Here, they're back to their old ways. "Parallel Play" was not a great Sloan album; neither is this one, where each member is given one side of a vinyl record to do whatever they please. Jay Ferguson and Chris Murphy opt for five songs each. Master of concision Patrick Pentland offers four. Oddball drummer Andrew Scott delivers an 18-minute Syd Barrett-ish suite that's easily the strangest thing in the Sloan catalogue (it involves barking dogs and a children's choir).

Ferguson is first up to bat, followed by Murphy, Pentland and Scott — was this an alphabetical decision? Or maybe some mediator outside the band decided the order the album by quality: Ferguson's songs are all lovely, rich with classic Sloan harmonies, and likely to be the most enduring. Murphy opens his set with one of his best, "Carried Away"; the rest don't rise to that standard, though in "So Far So Good" he does score the album's best lyric: "Don't be surprised when we elect another liar / did you learn nothing from five seasons of 'The Wire?'" Pentland can usually be counted on for surefire rockers; this time, only the amusing "13 (Under a Bad Sign)" is likely to raise any fists. Meanwhile, his clunky rock ballad has the unfortunately accurate chorus: "What's inside is dead." Scott's suite, for all its obtuseness, is not a solo act: it at least sounds like the band is capable of working together and pushing their creative boundaries, even if it doesn't always work.

--taken from: The Waterloo Region Record