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Album reviews Music

Wintersleep – Hello Hum

WINTERSLEEP play Lee’s Palace Tuesday (June 12). See listing. Rating: NNNNN


Wintersleep’s fifth album sounds massive – as it should with the legendary Dave Fridmann co-producing and mixing. He’s behind trippy, ethereal albums by, most notably, Mercury Rev and the Flaming Lips. The other producer is Tony Doogan, better known for his work with Belle & Sebastian and Mogwai. The result is a driving mix of mind-spinning psychedelic sounds that are sensitive to the Halifax band’s poetic, singer/songwriter-informed tunes.

The Juno Award winners, for their part, have delivered some of the best songs of their career. First single In Came The Flood pushes forward on a colossal and hypnotic groove. Permanent Sigh is a leap forward in songwriting (as is Someone, Somewhere), with rhythmically jerky verses that open into stunning choruses. Zones makes clear the band’s Radiohead influences yet adds several twists by the end, while Unzipper is the kind of inventive rock that commercial radio would be smart to get behind.

Hello Hum is a beautiful and triumphant album, the sound of a long-running band rediscovering itself.

Top track: Permanent Sigh

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