Rating: NNN
With four very different songwriting voices competing for space rather than one unified band voice, the success of a Sloan album usually depends on how strong each contributor’s work turns out to be. 1998’s Navy Blues was an uneven affair, but Pretty Together is considerably less so. In part this is because the entire band seems interested in pushing Sloan’s sound forward, whether it’s by adding keyboard plinks or stripping Chris Murphy’s The Life Of A Working Girl down to an acoustic guitar loop. Breakups provide the most potent material here, while the back end of the record features some of Sloan’s best and most atypical tunes, including Jay Ferguson’s Are You Giving Me Back My Love? and Patrick Pentland’s loping Your Dreams Have Come True. You’d be hard pressed to call it experimental, but it’s a start.
