On the occasion of the band’s 25th anniversary, Barenaked Ladies – Ed Robertson (guitar/vocals), Jim Creeggan (bass/vocals), Kevin Hearn (keyboard/guitar/vocals) and Tyler Stewart (drums/vocals) are celebrating with new album GRINNING STREAK. The album, the band’s twelfth, is their first in partnership with Vanguard Records after self-releasing their last four efforts.
Barenaked Ladies
The album picks up steam via its hyper-hooky 1st single ‘Boomerang,’ produced by Gavin Brown (The Tragically Hip, Metric), who handled 11 of GRINNING STREAK’s 15 tracks. Another session with Toronto’s Howie Beck (Feist, Walk off The Earth) yielded four album tracks: the buoyant ‘Who Knew,’ the wistful ‘Smile,’ the swirling ‘Off His Head’ and the chugging ‘Best Damn Friend.’ Rounding out the sessions is a Mark Endert (Maroon 5, Train) super-pop re-mix of “Boomerang.”
Returning to Toronto in mid-March, the band banged out remainder of the songs with Brown. These remarkably productive final sessions yielded several stone-cold killers, paced by the quintessentially catchy ‘Odds Are,’ which marries a wicked-clever mathematical premise to a chorus hook that elevates with such thrust that it practically leaves a vapor trail. BNL go EDM, so to speak, on ‘Limits,’ as Robertson climbs atop an earth-shaking electro-groove to deliver a cautionary tale about the risks inherent in impulsively exceeding the metaphorical speed limit, while ‘Did I Say That Out Loud?’ is a blast of romantic ardor fueled by ‘alcohol or alchemy’ that clocks in at a pulse-racing 2:27. All three are worthy additions to a canon already bursting at the seams with brainy, big-hearted classics.
Indeed, the whole of GRINNING STREAK unfolds with the signature blend of immediacy, tunefulness and witty sophistication that made such BNL hits as ‘Pinch Me, ‘Brian Wilson,’ ‘If I Had $1,000,000’ and the chart-topping ‘One Week’ modern-day classics.
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