Chemistry Of Common Life, The

Hard-rock/indie/punk mix from this rather good Toronto band. They’ve moved more into toying with different sounds on this one even using flute and melodic “indie rock” (emphasis on ROCK, not wuss) choruses and even some psych guitar. Now as before, vocalist Pink Eyes is heavily indebted (no pun intended) to Poison Idea’s Jerry A. In all a bunch of catchy songs that pretty much work.

(((1))) Starts with flute (?!), slowly but steadily picks up into garagey/indie punk with screamed out female & male vocals. Catchy but way too much bong-laden wah pedal.
(((2))) Odd percussion and Stooge-like strumming, swaggery and straight ahead loud punkish indie rock. Spotty drumming and structure.
(((3))) Psych-electronic interlude. Closer to M83 or Neu! than anything else. Not a bad thing, just unexpected.
((((4))) Hard hitting drums and some more electronic squals and rockin’ guitars. All leading to a good head noddin’ number that would go over well live.
((((5)))) Another drum-electronic based intro then a tight mix of straight-forward hard sloggin’ rock.
(((6))) Punk-psych focused on the guitar and vocals. Could be a lot shorter though.
((((7)))) Uppity early 90’s indie rock. As if Superchunk was fighting it out with Poison Idea.
(((8))) Melodic duet with one of the women from the Vivian Girls. Some good vocals parts but the instrumentation is just “there” too often.
((((9)))) (FCC “Fuckin’ sung once @ 3:37) Big, bold, rockin’ and struttin’ it’s stuff. Infectious
((10)) Boring interlude with more strums & squalls.
(((11))) Slow build up that fades in after about 45 seconds. More strums and straight-up punkish 90’s indie rawk, goes on a little too long.