Nathan

After impressing with their Juno-nominated second album, Jimson Weed, Winnipeg quartet Nathan up the ante on their follow-up. Instead of trying to recreate previous successes, the band tweak their sound for album number three, to dramatic effect. Trumpets and Theremin sneak into songs, taking the sound out of the comfortable mix of previous releases and expanding their musical soundscape. Thematically, small-town isolation snakes through a number of the tunes; it’s the kind of thing anyone who grew up in a small, rural town dreaming of more urban settings will relate to. But it is the juxtaposition between the heavenly vocal harmonies of vocalists Keri Latimer and Shelly Marshall, and the darker, disparate imagery of the lyrics that really stands out. Opener "John Paul’s Deliveries,” the prettiest little country song this writer’s heard all year, is an ode to sneaking out to get drunk in the middle of the night as a teenager. It’s the most brilliant example of the aforementioned juxtaposition, although I must admit that rhyming the words "encyclopaedia” and "media” elsewhere is pretty damn fine too.