LIBRARY VOICES play the Horseshoe on October 28. See listing Rating: NNNN
Library Voices have an undeniable knack for sticky hooks and upbeat, danceable melodies, but on their sophomore LP they’re never content to hang a whole song on them. The Regina seven-piece are just as interested in crafting brainy, literature-referencing, almost-too-clever lyrics.
The classic power-pop riffs, sugar-sweet harmonies and, for the first time, textural bleeps and bloops are as crafted as on their debut and become all the more impressive when paired with references to Hemingway and Alan Lomax. Generation Handclap and Be My Juliette Gréco, Paris 1949 perhaps too naively dismiss their generational peers and romanticize purely literary antecedents.
That said, the band’s ability to turn lines like “Parliament’s making cuts to the CBC” into singalong choruses is impressive.
Top track: The Prime Minister’s Daughter
