Musicolatry: Love at the End of the World Review
by Andreas Korfmann
Album: Love at the End of the World (2008)
Sam Roberts shocked the Canadian music scene with his 2001 debut EP The Inhuman Condition. It sold over 50,000 copies and has since been certified as gold in Canada—ensuring his place as a staple in every Canadian music enthusiast’s collection. His recent studio album, Love at the End of the World was released on May 20th of this year and has already gathered quite the load of attention. His third studio album, Love at the end of the World has been greatly anticipated ever since the first single release off the new album on March 4th, Them Kids. His modern interpretation of classic rock mixed with a retro-leaning style of newer alternative music has reached the hearts and certainly the ears of many Canadian and international music devotees everywhere.
His second studio album, Chemical City touched more on a 70’s psychedelia style, brilliant but not accessible to all. This release was not too widely accepted—although the first single of that album, “The Gate” sat fairly well amongst traditional Sam Roberts fans. Moving away from this classic yet selective sound comes Love at the End of the World, touching on his early styles of more rigid and classic composition in Them Kids, and moving more in the alternative-rock direction with his other songs such as “Lions of the Kalahari”, “End of the Empire”, and “The Pilgrim”. The choice of guitar techniques is not typical of traditional classic guitar melodies, and in this release are more of a bubbling and soaring sound opposed to those containing crackling and flickering elements.
To go along with his adventurous styles, Roberts, now settled in Montreal, Quebec with his wife and daughter, has presented us with some strong messages in songs such as “Them Kids” and “End Of The Empire”. In his first single (Them Kids), Roberts states that “The kids don’t know how to dance and rock’n'roll”, further showing us that his aging self sees the youth of today slowly slipping away from pasts that only a select amount of youth currently familiarize themselves with. In a recent television interview with George Stroumboulopoulos, Roberts stated that “I hate to say that the form dominates the way we feel about ourselves, but it’s true, we have come to the point where we have to realize we are not the young crop anymore”, referring to him playing with his band for most of his life (since high school) and that musically speaking, a lot has been written and performed over the years.
Another interesting note to add is that this album is the first recorded on Sam Roberts’ own label, Secret Brain, after starting it preceding the success of We Were Born in a Flame and Chemical City. The first Sam Roberts record with a title track, “Love at the End of the World” is a bluesy, garage-rock-like song that captures the mood of this album in its entirety and is well worth the break in tradition. Just as this album’s introductory and title track captures the mood of what is to come, the closing track Detroit ’67 encompasses Roberts’ over-all attitude towards the creation of this album in a single piano-blues jam. “Cause I’m just looking for some sounds / to ease the vice that squeezes us every day”.
The music is the message and this album is truly a great display of the musical genius that is Sam Roberts. This truly is Canadian rock ‘n’ roll.
Sam Roberts convinces us that there’s still love (and great music) at the end of the world
August 13 2008 05:59 pm | Uncategorized
