THE NEW YEAR PLAY LEE’S PALACE (529 BLOOR W) OCT 15.
After four years off, Matt and Bubba Kadane return with the third instalment from their post-Bedhead band The New Year. This self-titled album begins with the lengthy and measured drum march of “Folios,” a track that sounds like the opening to a future Wes Anderson film. The disc continues with a tone of idle disaffection, as the lush loneliness of “The Company I Can Get” is followed by the indifferent anthem “X off Days.” The band apparently prefer to soundtrack their self-reflection with waltzes, though they avoid the crutch of using minor-key melodies to project sadness, offering instead a kind of doomed hopefulness with the bright strumming of “Seven Days and Seven Nights” and the shimmering arpeggios of “Wages of Sleep.” Bleakness is familiar territory for The New Year, yet here they tread somewhat complacently — the Kadane brothers insularly enjoying their misery doesn’t always connect with the listener. Does anyone else just want to give these guys a big hug and some Hallmark advice?