Bend Sinister

Four years, two EPs and one digital B-sides collection separate Small Fame from Bend Sinister's previous full-length: Stories of Brothers, Tales of Lovers. If you've been following the Vancouver, BC indie rock outfit in that time, the sound of their latest LP won't come as too much of surprise. These 12 buoyant numbers infuse '70s piano pop melodies with glam rock guitars and the occasional hint of prog complexity. The energy rarely wavers over the course of these 44 minutes and nearly every song is marked by theatrical crescendos and frontman Dan Moxon's exuberant, glee club-style singing. Even when the group tone down the cheeriness for a darker tune, as on "My Lady" and "Black Magic Woman," they do it with so much glitz and theatricality that it only serves to reinforce the overall impression: that the long break between albums has done nothing to spoil Bend Sinister's ebullient energy, and that's a good thing.