Sloan
One Chord to Another
The Enclave
Release Date: 1997
So what if Sloan's aggressively bouncy sound pillages every popster from Paul McCartney to the Partridge Family? The dozen little gems on One Chord to Another are deceptively upbeat. Add to the guitar-pop recipe a smattering of well-placed trumpets and a knowing wink, and what seems like fluff at first, becomes a manifesto for the ordinary Joe's struggle against mediocrity. After all, why play it straight when you can throw in a couple moments of lo-fi dissonance or a few deliciously haphazard guitar riffs?
There have been a lot of Beatles rip-offs, and many of them have come up with some pretty memorable tunes. Remember "There She Goes?" But The La's didn't have staying power because nothing really anchored the group's music except for an intense love of John, Paul, George and Ringo.
One Chord to Another hints that Sloan might be
different. The loping piano part and psychedelic glaze of "A Side Wins," proves that Sloan made it past "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and listened at least as far as Sgt. Pepper. And the noisier edges in "The Good In Everyone" and "G Turns to D" suggest that the band has listened to a little Archers of Loaf or Sebadoh. There's plenty of melody, even some harmony, and neither is buried nearly as deep as with the lo-fi pioneers. But Sloan isn't afraid to rough up their pretty melodies with a little elbow grease and gutsy
emotion.
Nothing sums up Sloan's approach better than "Autobiography." It could be a sappy story about puppy love gone bad, but the edgy guitar part belies something deeper. The lyrics are sung with a wide-eyed innocence that has been
stung with the bitter taste of being trapped on the bottom rung of life's ladder. "I'm bright and young and gifted in my autobiography/I figure who would know better than me," the band croons. "But no one's going to read it/so I'm sure it doesn't matter." And who could overlook the joyous trumpet on "Everything You've Done Wrong"? It might sound like a TV theme song from the 70's if Sloan didn't sound so goddamn earnest.
Sure, Sloan sounds like it's trying too hard when it pretends to
be Pavement. And on a couple tunes the band comes off a tad smug and self-satisfied. But at a time when rock music thrives on that which is loud and dense, it's nice to see a band with a simplicity and subtlety that lets you read between the lines.
-- Chris Schwartz
schwartz@outersound.com
