"GOLDEN UNWORLDLY SILENCE"

Gojira + "The Heaviest Matter Of The Universe"

What God wrote, when He reviewed this single, was "This is SO FLIPPING GOOD." And as He wrote He continued the business of saving mankind's souls, He directed archangels, He buried Atlantis a little deeper, He gave Dan Brown another free ticket, and He pondered the impenetrable mystery of the existence of flaccid donuts served through a brick wall in cities and villages across Canada. And He hasn't even heard the rest of Gojira's album yet.

Business is going to blow His mind.

POPE SLOAN

Sloan + "Ill Placed Trust"

Most obviously there are the the big blocky henges of sound making up "Who Taught You To Live Like That?" and then, of course, there's Jay Ferguson's solidly AM tenor on "Right Or Wrong," and it would be awkward, and impossible, to duck the flashily-baited hooks of "I've Gotta Try" and "Can't You Figure It Out?". But for me, the smooth opening confessional followed by the jarring choruses of "Ill Placed Trust" are the reason I love Never Hear The End Of It and the reason I listen to Sloan. The group has always been a milk-and-cerebral Beatles band, but hardly more so, and more pleasingly, than on an overlooked gem like the twenty-first cut off their 2006 release. Yes, I realize that singling out a song from a concept album of this calibre is like playing king's jeweler to the Hope Diamond, but spare me your curses, I've got to try.

"Ill Placed Trust" is one of the very few power-pop songs on a mainstream release to use a chorus that reflects and advances the narrative of the song. The drums punch out the opening beat. The guitars are right there. Around 0:22, Patrick Pentland's voice rises up and pulls the music along with him. "People tell me that I take it too far." Which, ironically, fittingly, is when the chorus breaks up the forward train of the music and the song staggers back and starts to chug. Let's say Lutwidge is talking to Alice. You don't know Lutwidge, I don't know Alice, but why not? Everything Alice does, Lutwidge is also planning on doing, he's got mirrors, he's writing her down in a book, he's making her out to be ten feet tall. Alice is appalled, she starts backing away from the obsessed narrator. Ludtwidge feels betrayed, he doesn't realize that he's responsible for Alice's reaction, he lapses into paranoia, his openness gives way to a vicious call-out: "Can you feel it? Ill placed trust? I can feel it." Alice backs away faster. The sad truth is that the obsession only grows, and as the song crashes into repeat, the voice of the narrator is continually out-chorused by his failure to realize what he's singing about. "Ill Placed Trust" is about self-delusion. "Promises rust"? No promises were made. So the sound must seem an echo to the sense. The smooth wailing opening and the continual turn-away response perfectly mirror the compartmentalized heart of the narrator. Sloan is making more than music here, dammit, this is seamless, this is art.

MESSIER, NOISIER, BURNING

So Bert says, he does, he says, "In the past, we've always kind of brought pop sensibility into heavy rock, but this is going to be all that much more tantalizing and brutal. Our songs are ten times messier and noisier than they've ever been." And then he and the boys release a cover of the only single the Talking Heads ever cracked the Top 10 with and that would be "Burning Down The House," so, yeah. No doubt about it, the next three bands or singers to be covered by The Used will be The Jackson 5, Hall & Oates and, of course, Kelly Clarkson. BAD ASS!