By Divine Right
All Hail Discordia
Squirtgun Records

This new CD from Toronto trio BDR is a simple, old-fashioned riff-loving pop album. The songs are melodic but mellow, contemplative but joyful. It's one of those albums you want to just sit back and 'be' when you listen to. Maybe get out the lemonade and the big straw hat and have a nice sit, in your lawn chair in the sunshine. The songs generally have a slow, crusin' pace, with definite charm and grace even when the lyrics may get awkward ("i believe in bigfoot, bigfoot believes in trees"). Jose's vocals always embrace a sort of joyful belief in "everyone" and everything he is singing about.

All lyrical themes are simple, graceful, and consistent. With drug-hazed titles like Rock High and Sofa Tour that were just made for relaxing and not worrying about anything. These lyrical themes are also very evident musically, with the slow, but very catchy tunes that really make you feel good. The vocals are nicely harmonized and very calm and cool, in the sort of way that makes you smile confidently. These songs are fairly unique in the way that they can be both slow, and bouncy-catchy simultaneously. Of course in an album like this we must have our oohs and aaah and nananananahs to encourage our toe tappings and blissful joy. Unfortunately the only comparison I could possibly think of is Guided By Voices (don't ask where I hear that) meet The Beatles... and they take sleeping pills.

Copyright © 1997 Laura Bowman