Key to the City
Owls of Getchu
Thing about monsters, they’re kind of built to run amok. Calgary’s Chris Vail has been alluding to this album for years, and I’ve heard at least one earlier version that, while rocking slightly more, didn’t have the technical beauty of this one. But what is “this,” exactly?
Slightly tough to define. It’s a pop album about monsters, which I can get behind, having once illustrated a field guide to monsters. It’s tempting to soften and de-torture-porn our slimy, hairy imaginary friends — which is precisely what Vail and the boys have done. The opening number about a ghost, for example, has chipper trumpet and soft cooing, asking rhetorically, “Who’s afraid of a ghost?” as if such fear were simply ridiculous.
Moving through the haunted house, we find a vampire in the bedroom, sung about with a Talking Heads 77 twitch. “You trade a lover for a foe, the bandage unravels,” Vail sings, adding a mummy to the mix, a clear allegory for most relationships. The next song is sung by a person bewitched, pleasantly energized by the magical process of surrender.
A lot of the fun of Owls is trying to decipher which Halloween character is being sung about as the lyrics peel the onion layers. I won’t spoil anymore having said that, but the line “The first time I learned to shave was from a movie” doesn’t take you where you’d think.
This is a simmering masterpiece, jokey at times, but with a sincere affection for the imaginary — which, after all, is how all love begins.
****

Judas Priest
Touch of Evil
The antidote to Iron Maiden’s disappointing concert cash-in from earlier this year, Touch of Evil makes me hate myself for circumstantially missing Priest numerous times. This is a document of a metal band catapulting their sound to the very edge of mortality, epic guitars and drums mixed ridiculously through the cathedral ceiling. Rob Halford indeed pulls out his most evil tracks, leaving the Guitar Hero hits at home for the nerds to Whac-a-Mole in their filthy basements.
The shaved one opens with the ancient “Judas Rising,” and closes with the best Priest song of all time, “Painkiller,” thrash that could shatter the skull of an iron pachycephalosaurus. And because they don’t rely on the most predictable, the band actually manages to redefine itself outside of camp, Halford still capable of the odd shriek.
It’s the classic metal record of the year so far, its theatrical power matched only by Dio not just surviving, but rushing the border white-knuckled with teeth bared.
****1/2

OLD SCHOOL
Joy Division
Unknown Pleasures (1979)
Speaking of monsters and doom, Joy Division’s debut album is so ridiculously perfect I have to intentionally forget it every time I listen to some poor schlup’s new album on CBC. This band did so much with so little — Ian Curtis basically can’t sing, for starters.
But what a start to a suicide note! Peter Hook owns the album with that bass, Curtis’ freakouts balanced by his icy sighs. “Love Will Tear Us Apart” is the obvious winner, but try on “Day of the Lords” with its “Where will it end?” as a funeral suit if you get the chance. Spare, haunted, and perfectly tragic. Oh, Manchester.
*****