Sloan’s “double-sided solo album” allows plenty of time to marvel at how far all four principles have come as pop craftsmen.
Sloan's Chris Murphy, left, Jay Ferguson, Patrick Pentland and Andrew Scott divvied up the songwriting chores more explicitly than ever on their fine new album, Commonwealth.
by Ben Rayner
The idea of Sloan divvying up its songwriting duties is nothing new, of course; this is simply what Sloan does. Heading into the 11th album of its stubbornly engaging 23-year career, however, the Halifax-born quartet issued itself a four-way challenge to come up with a single vinyl side’s worth of songs per member. Smart tactic. Commonwealth, the resulting “solo-sided double-album,” boasts some of the stickiest Sloan tunes in recent memory and, even during its rare forgettable moments, allows you plenty of time to marvel at just how far all four principles have come as pop craftsmen since the days of Peppermint and Smeared.
There’s more overlap than you might think between everyone’s personal “sounds” here. There are two sides of sumptuous, lost-’70s soft-pop from Chris Murphy and Jay Ferguson — whose smashing “You’ve Got a Lot on Your Mind” is such an impossible act for anyone, including himself, to follow that he loops the melody back in on “Cleopatra.”
After that, the jolt of low-slung fuzz-rock found on Patrick Pentland’s Side 3 offers the only truly jarring change-up. Even then, though, the proceedings are still identifiably Sloan-like, as they remain through drummer/resident weirdo Andrew Scott’s 18-minute, album-closing odyssey “Forty-Eight Portraits.” At least when the dogs stop barking and the first melody comes in. Be patient. It’ll come.
--taken from: Toronto Star
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