The Hip Turn It Up

However, the Kingston, Ont., quintet prove just as strong on quieter, more reflective tunes, such as the slow stand-out track, Are We Family. "It's only human to want to inhabit every feeling you've got / And more often than not, let's take it to the nth degree," a tender-sounding Gord Downie sings.

The Hip also pay tribute to Atlanta Thrashers hockey player Dan Snyder -- who was killed in a car accident last fall -- on the opening rocker, Heaven Is A Better Place Today.

"Here's a glue guy, a performance god, a makeshift shrine, newly lain sod," sings Downie. "Heaven is a better place today because of this, but the world is just not the same."

Otherwise, such mid-tempo numbers as Summer's Killing Us and It Can't Be Nashville Every Night, reflect the band's overall concern with the state of the world.

The group also get nice and sludgy, a la Neil Young's Crazy Horse, on Gus: The Polar Bear From Central Park, As Makeshift As We Are and Mean Streak, with nice guitar work on all three from Robby Baker.

And Downie has never sounded more possessed as he does on the impassioned and tuneful You're Everywhere: "When I reel my Irish in, when I sleep on the train, in straight lines through shadows, you're there."

Track Listing

Note: By Jane Stevenson | Toronto Sun