Canadian Classic: Sills and Smith

Pacing is everything; but there's music that should be getting heard.  So for a 2nd Monday feature here's Sills and Smith (Jeremy Allan Michael Sills /Frank Smith) with "Writer's Retreat."  It might seem like a cop-out to compare a group from Ottawa with other Canadian bands, but here it's apropos.  The Tragically Hip have been trying for years to get something as epic and achingly personal combined in the same tune, and these guys have done it as if it were just that easy.  Maybe they spent a snowed-in weekend drinking Les Maudits beer and listening to "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" relentlessly to get into the proper frame of mind here.  The song opens with wobbly singing that intones "a cabin in the woods, a writer's retreat, a long gravel road..." over an ominous minor chord to minor sixth dirty guitar; clearly this is isn't a story that ends well.  The spacious mix leaves storytelling room, and the choruses open into a rolling 6/8 release of major chords with layers of expansive bass and lead guitar.  The production work of Jonathan Edwards makes what would be a merely quirky tune in the wrong hands into a dramatic knockout. And this is definitely one of the more artful videos I've seen.  Well done guys!

http://www.reverbnation.com/sillssmith