They must be putting something in the water in Canada if the staggering amount of great bands to have appeared from the Great White North in recent years is any indication. For those of you that are mentally compiling a list, then prepare to add yet another with the post-rock group My Dad Vs. Yours. Virtually disappearing after their first, and rather good, album After Winter Must Come Spring they have resurfaced approximately three years later with a brasher and more invigorating sound.
Opening track, “En Plein Soleil”, sets the standard for the album with its static heavy take of stadium rock, a steady pulse runs through it that evokes the Stone Roses in their first album heyday. It’s nearly five minutes of high energy music that seems perfectly attuned to the best summer weather. The track develops a slower pace as the lead out flows expertly into the moodier “Hip to Hip”, which feels like a ballad without the vocals.
“Ghost Horse” could have appeared on their debut album, a spiritual partner to the excellent Habla Paisano. Its tone is slower with a more funereal undercurrent that bleeds into the creepy “Nonno” with its distorted voiceover used to considerable effect.
It is not until “Carry the Weight” that the album regains the more upbeat sound that the opener promised and that only lasts a track before the title track “Little Symphonies” returns to the intricate dark hearted melodies that dominate the album.
What is evident is that this is an album that works in two forms- in the traditional long playing format with the tracks leading into each other as the experimentation with the traditional ‘rock’ instruments, and more unusual sources of noise, deepens to create a sound that is both aware of the genre that created it but remains distant from it. In the other form it becomes an approach to post-rock that acknowledges that in the 21st Century it is the iPod, not the 12” vinyl that dominates. As the title suggests this is an album that is comprised of ‘Little Symphonies’ whilst each track leads into each other, the lack of an overarching theme to the record means that these songs are just as effective when separated that they are together. However it must be acknowledged that the shuffle function takes away some of the depth to the album which is not fully evident except when listened to in its complete form.
Little Symphonies is not a perfect album; it never truly reaches the greatness of its opening track, but with its intricate and deft melodies it deserves your attention. They may yet deliver an album that lives up to the skill that is heard throughout this album. There really must be something in the water.
