In a special artist-on-artist chat, The Junior League’s Joe Adragna talks with Sloan’s Jay Ferguson.

I will not pretend to be non-partisan when it comes to Sloan. They are, to my mind, one of the best bands ever and one of the few bands that, since their inception in 1991, have consistently created strong albums and have avoided the usually-inevitable weak one. The Toronto-based four piece, fresh off my favorite record of 2006 (that would be thirty-track epic Never Hear The End Of It), are back with Parallel Play, the latest release in a career that’s flown under the radar of the U.S. mainstream.

The group has four distinct songwriters and multi-instrumentalists: Jay Ferguson, Chris Murphy, Patrick Pentland, and Andrew Scott. Each member contributes at least three songs to Parallel Play (Scott clocks in with four), and their individual songwriting styles are well represented. The great thing about Sloan’s White Album approach is that it’s kind of like getting four different flavors of ice cream—it’s all tasty, and you don’t have to decide between cherry vanilla and rocky road. Ferguson, the band’s resident pop confectionist, delivers one of the album’s high points with the melancholic (but bouncy) “Cheap Champagne;” Murphy’s clever lyrics and gifted melodic sense shines on “All I Am is All You’re Not;” Pentland brings his brand of the rock with the catchy lead-off track, “Believe;” and Scott blasts through the garage-like “Emergency 911.”

Of course, I could go on about really geeky production points or fantastic parts on Parallel Play—like the great chorus of “Living The Dream,” with its fantastic ascending bass line; or maybe the “You Keep Me Hanging On” guitar part on “If I Could Change Your Mind;” perhaps I could discuss the echoy, Moby Grape-ish shuffle of “Down in the Basement;” or I could go on about the fabulous harmonies on the chorus of “Believe.”

Instead I’m just going to tell you to go get Parallel Play and enjoy the latest release from a band that will earn an honored place on your turntable/CD player/MP3 player. (more…)

“It isn’t about every song being some genius home run. Music is more eclectic than that. Records are more eclectic than that. That’s why “Wild Honey Pie” is on the “White Album.” —Charles Thompson

Mountain Battles is the Breeders’ White Album. Maybe I’m supposed to woo you more, suggest and insinuate with all kinds of flowery descriptions of what this album sounds like (and don’t worry, it’s coming), but there it is, my big, wet, sloppy kiss to you and also to this record, which has made my ears born again. It’s the kind of album that shatters the critic’s system of stars, grades and whatever ruler is put up to the latest offerings, but there you have them up above there. The otherwise venerable Onion A.V. Club, for example, gives Mountain Battles a C+. calling it “shapeless.” Are we beyond the point of no return where albums have to be a string of easily digestible hits, served up one right after the other? Maybe Mountain Battles’ spectrum is so wide ranging it’s hard for those with impaired senses (like music critics) to understand, even though the Breeders lay it out quite simply on the first two tracks. Opener “Overglazed” is an ethereal echo, an easy refrain shout-sung over swooping guitar riffs and an excitable drum track. The follow-up, “Bang On,” then counters as a lo-fi, staticy hopscotch tune with lyrics that seem deliberately unfinished, though the otherwise vivid insert artwork (by Pixies veteran Vaughan Oliver) leaves them out. The third track, “Night of Joy,” finds us in the dead center and is the sweetest black hole lullaby you could possibly lose yourself in. The title, alas, does not reference (in any discernible way) the low-rent strip club in Confederacy of Dunces, though it wouldn’t be hard to imagine the spacey Darlene humming this to herself as she practices her “routine.” (more…)

“Susan,” Dan Bejar sings, “sipping sherry, branded by moonlight’s just a game people are playing tonight. Seriously, terror advances. So…” And with those delicate words of warning minor keys dance some sort of celebration, a paean to loving one another while the world keeps eroding. A soft mountain of synthesizer rises up around Bejar’s craggy voice, which finds its home while groaning amidst the manic drumming and arpeggios, which slide atop one another like so many lizards on a windowpane. (more…)

If you don’t know someone—I mean really know them in the sense that you’ve made some emotional connection with them, gone out drinking with them, had that mystical one-night stand with them, sat on a back porch playing guitar with them, even if only once—if you haven’t warmed your cold hands on another person’s soul, can you really care what happens to them? If you have looked, however quickly, into a person’s heart and tried to understand them, how can you possibly turn away when that person is in pain? (more…)