Rating: NNN
If you’re wondering who influenced Owen Marchildon, Purple Hill’s head honcho, he courteously lists them in the first track: Spacemen 3, My Bloody Valentine, the Velvet Underground. Huh? – he’s practically yodelling when he sings this, right before going into a Neil Young harmonica session. Upon a closer listen, though, you realize the ex-From Fiction member is looking back on a hazy chemical period in his life, not that signs of those bands don’t eventually reveal themselves. But much of I Was Born is introspective and twangy, the lyrics fearlessly revealing, as on the gonzo Tonight I’ve Been Chicken, Choking On The Whiskey.
Marchildon finally shows that Lou Reed love, however, in the revved-up It Gets Pretty Good, then keeps up the amplification for Darkness And Drought before the Spacemen comedown comforts of Where Has All The Bust Gone and Doreen. Who knew shoegaze and twang could intertwine so impressively?
Purple Hill drop their new CD at Tranzac Saturday (January 26).
