The New Music

Early Day Miners The Treatment (Secretly Canadian)
If you’re familiar with Early Day Miners then The Treatment will be a complete and bewildering surprise to you. For the better part of a decade, the Bloomington, Indiana-based band have amassed a catalogue of music that incorporated both the dreamy effects of shoegaze with the more structured yet snail-paced tempos of slowcore. Their albums have always been creeping and sweeping, often using patience as their greatest virtue. The Treatment, however, lets you know right away that after five albums though, they’re ready to get the blood circulating. “In the Fire” gets things going with some playful interplay between the bass and guitars, which ending up chopping and snaking their ways into what could be easily pegged as a proper pop song. And it doesn’t end there. “Spaces” exudes near-zealous harmonies in the chorus, as well as a strong groove in the maraca-assisted beats, and it might sound weird but “How to Fall” recalls the baggy sound of Inspiral Carpets (no really). So much of The Treatment is a departure, that when it comes to reaching eight minutes – a time they broke twice on the previous Offshore – they do it without resorting to drowning it all out in a sea of nebulous reverb. While it takes a few listens to get used to the new EDM, this makeover as melody seekers suits a band who were always on the cusp of a record like The Treatment. It’s nice to hear them finally take the plunge. Rating: B

The Clean Mister Pop (Merge)
After sitting out for a number of years, Kiwi pop legends The Clean have reassembled and returned with their first album since 2001’s The Getaway. Judging by all of the indie bands out there that sound an awful lot like The Clean, it appears that the timing couldn’t be better. The band’s stock has risen significantly this decade, thanks to the informative Anthology that Merge also released back in 2002. While it’s been nice getting solo work from David Kilgour and to see Robert Scott still at it with The Bats, it’s exciting to get a new Clean LP. Mister Pop isn’t the album to convince you that favourite old bands can reunite without embarrassing themselves. But it does show that Scott and the Kilgours (David and Hamish) still have the touch at times. It starts strong with the dreamy instrumental “Loog, which might just run in circles, but sets the tone for the back to back jangly bliss of “Are You Really On Drugs” “In The Dreamlife You Need A Rubber Soul.” But Mister Pop begins to swerve off track a little not long after. “Moon Jumper” is throwaway Velvets, “Tensile” loses itself deep in the Kraut and kosmiche and “Simple Fix” is hopelessly hung up on being quirky. It’s sad that a sweet opus like “Factory Man” is then lost in that half’s weirdness. Though the unevenness of it is disappointing, Mister Pop does give us moments where we’re reminded of why The Clean are so influential today. Rating: C+