26 Jan 2007
Our Lady Peace: Gravity
A follow-up to the outstanding but commercially unsuccessful album Spiritual Machines, Our Lady Peace’s Gravity proved to be a relative hit that gave the band the recogition that was closer to what they had deserved for so long. It won them many new fans but at the same time alienated others - maybe it was the departure of Mike Turner, or the hiring of Bob Rock instead of Mike Lanni as producer, or it could have merely been a planned change of direction on the part of the band themselves. Whatever the reason, it’s a marked departure from the quirky alt-rock of their earlier days.
Clumsy was one of the first few real CDs I ever owned and remember at the time thinking to myself “Wow, this is a bit lame.” Being one of the few CDs I owned however it received weeks of play through lack of choice and at the time I was listening to very standard and less mature punk (sorry, Offspring). As time went by I became completely obsessed, I mean big time by their use of funny tunings, Raine’s voice and their melodic lyrics which took me away from my own life and my own issues. Happiness Is Not a Fish That You Can Catch was just as much as a triumph as Clumsy; however Spiritual machines is by far the best album I have ever owned: OLP’s fourth outing was by far there finest hour. The album is based on the works of futurologist Ray Kurzweil who supplies trinkets of insight from his book Age of Spiritual Machines.
While OLP are largely unknown internationally (heaven knows why, quite frankly), they are given the recognition they deserve in their native Canada, which this superb live album shows. Recorded on tour after the release of their Gravity LP, the ability of the band’s live sound to surpass that of their studio recordings is very much evident. The songs are inevitably less polished but are more ambient and heavy sounding, and it’s good to see so many of their best songs played back-to-back.