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Combating countless Bryan Adams / Mountie / eh jokes, the diverse and, as of recently, creatively-supercharged music scene in Canada has helped to establish our friendly neighbor’s integrity over the border as much as any other of the country’s exports…though probably not quite as much as pacifism or pot decriminalization, but those are hard to top. Bands like The Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, The Constantines and countless others have been making some of the best and most interesting music around today, further establishing the cultural hubs of Montreal and Toronto, demarking the cities on scenesters’ indie-gps-equipped ipods.
Well put another pushpin on the map, for Orangeville, Ontario, and for the Haymakers. This 8-piece psych rock troupe have been earnestly forging a tight-knit musical community in their hometown of Orangeville, have established their own record label, the Harmony Rainbow Group, and have been playing countless shows in Orangeville and nearby Toronto. They were also obviously diligent students at Rock University, apparent not only from their myriad influences but also from their Zeppelinesque choice of album titles (their debut EP was called I).
Though they wear their influences like T-shirts—faded and stained mentions of Pink Floyd, The Band, and Neil Young in his ragged glory, a thrift store ELO shirt, memorabilia from the last time the Flaming Lips and Grandaddy came to town, a homemade high school Sonic Youth shirt, and so forth—the Haymakers’ greatest asset is that they have their own distinct sound and production aesthetic, despite the touchstone colorings. A band as large as they are talented, the Haymakers’ first full-length, II, benefits from the multifaceted skills of its players, from the array of instrumentation- multiple guitars, keyboards-a-plenty, banjo, trumpets, synth programming, vocal harmonies, four different songwriters—to the richness-on-a-thin-dime of the album’s recording and production, helmed by Stewart Gunn. The band’s sound is impeccable throughout, and the album drifts and rolls from highlight to highlight.
Though some of the songs in the middle of the album are not as strong or distinctive as the lilting sunshine of “Pick up the Phone”, the dirty stomp of “Diamond & Day”, or the album’s fittingly epic final act, even the least arresting of the songs on the album still sound good. And the roman numerals that pave the band’s future will inevitably bring stronger and stronger songs to match the Haymakers’ already strong sound.
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