You don't need to know anything about Sloan to see why they named their latest album "Never Hear the End of It," containing an amazing 30 tracks and 74 minutes of nonstop pop rock. This monster album takes weeks for one to fully absorb and appreciate and as one of the first releases of 2007, it certainly sets a high standard for what's to come this year.
Granted, the album was first released in Sloan's native Canada a few months earlier; it is just beginning to be promoted on the indie circuit here in the States on Chapel Hill's Yep Roc Records. Though this might become the band's most heavily promoted album to date, newer fans may be surprised to learn that 1994's "Twice Removed" is considered the best Canadian album of all time by a 1996 and 2005 Chart! Magazine readers' poll.
Sloan's broad appeal is easy to point out in that their sound is routinely compared to such legends of classic rock as The Beatles. From time to time in "Never Hear the End of It" they also invoke The Who, The Rolling Stones, Queen, and The Stooges. This is not to say that Sloan has mastered these sounds and become the greatest band ever, but rather that they leave their influences exposed.
Listeners might expect such a long collection of largely derivative songs to drone on and lose its edge after the first 12 to 15 tracks, but to the band's credit, they really take the opportunity to throw in everything they've got, hinting at their massive stylistic range. With an up-tempo beat on nearly every song and instantaneous, often overlapping transitions, Sloan has managed to take 30 unique songs and create a cohesive sound for over an hour.
Starting out with the first single, "Who Taught You to Live Like That?" Sloan uses a shuffle beat with a simple A-A-B rhyme pattern which could take some of the punch out of what might seem from the title to be a confrontational message, but fortunately it's strong enough to keep listeners' feet tapping. The next track, "I've Gotta Try," contains hints of Motion City Soundtrack as the band departs from the '70s for a bit in their quest at a power-pop anthem. After the catchy keyboard melody, the song includes an example of their typical, memorable lines that are either really deep or cheesy: "The thing about imagination/is that it takes most people every single day/to know they have one."
The band returns quickly to the most derivative track of all, "Fading into Obscurity" sounds like The Beatles for the first two minutes and Queen for the second. Though the sounds may be a perfect match at times, Sloan still manages to inject young life into the classic tunes by throwing in an energetic "yeah now" at every opportunity in songs like "Right or Wrong."
Their label of "power-pop" comes into question first in their Stones-like "I Can't Sleep" and more definitively in the cheery but aggressive "Blackout." After a return to form, the 21st track, "Ill Placed Trust," is the album's second single and this strong, driving rock anthem is well worth the wait. At this point the musicians seem to loosen up and experiment with solos and breaks in contrast with earlier efforts at trying to keep all the songs short enough to fit on one disc.
This "second wind" near the end contains a longer piano ballad that only seems natural in a classic rock album. In case the listener's attention is fading at this point, Sloan brings in the not-so-natural classic punk song "HFXNSHC," which obviously stands for Halifax Nova Scotia Hardcore. Despite their earnest efforts, though, they still end up sounding like The Who in double-time.
The inescapable similarities to the legends of classic rock have historically both strengthened and limited Sloan's sound and appeal. Though it brings in many new nostalgic listeners, many can't see the band for anything other than a bunch of copycats. At the end of 74 minutes, however, many of these comparisons begin to "fade into obscurity" and listeners finally begin to hear Sloan instead of just echoes. Though it may not be so natural for a band that has been around for 15 years to need a new strategy to define a sound, "Never Hear the End of It" is just what Sloan needs to finally get the recognition they deserve for their new mixtures of styles and sounds in what is otherwise the completely un-cool, worn out genre to which our parents still cling.
