Early Day Miners

While Early Day Miners have been kicking out the melancholic rock jams for a good decade, their latest album may as well be their first. It's not because the Secretly Canadian vets have returned to their '90s slowcore roots for The Treatment but because the Early Day Miners songbook has been ripped up, cast aside and reinvented, making this is a true departure and a welcome one at that. Gone are the Illinois group's sprawling, and often tiring, explorations. In their place are more focused, pop-oriented nuggets, complete with straightforward melodies, buoyant rhythms and, most surprisingly, some very new-romantic hooks. Still, the four-piece keep their old knack for texture, mood and pacing, it just now sounds more classic 4AD than Secretly Canadian. In fact, it's not far off from the transformation TV on the Radio went through with Dear Science, though to subtler effect. With any luck, The Treatment should stand as one of the biggest and, perhaps, best surprises of 2009.