The Whitsundays are the weird and wonderful musical
brainchild of Edmonton, Alberta's Paul Arnusch. The
world first heard from them when their compact, catchy
pop jewel of a first album came out in 2008, but in the
meantime Arnusch's vision has grown and mutated
tremendously. This time around his sophomore album
Saul, which Arnusch recorded in his own basement
over the course of a snowy Canadian winter, is much
different. Saul is a pop opus suitable for the rainiest
days or the most star-filled nights, a resplendent
collection of vintage psychedelia and jangly pop, yet
also something much darker and stranger than
anything the Whitsundays have done before.
The Whitsundays’ epoynmous debut album, released
on Friendly Fire Recordings in early 2008, caught the
ear of a lot of people - including Rolling Stone, who
called them "the next big Canadian indie supergroup."
Fueled by the generous accolades they were receiving
and a hefty dollop of willpower, Arnusch (who also
plays in dream-pop luminaries Faunts) spent a successful
year touring and playing festivals, including VirginFest
Calgary, CMJ and Sled Island. For Saul, Arnusch
hibernated in his basement, not only taking on the role
as writer, performer and producer, but this time
isolating himself one step deeper and engineering the
album as well. The result is an album that is every bit
as catchy as the Whitsundays' first album, but at the
same time more personal and revealing - these are still
melodic pop songs, but there's something deeper
lurking within.
Saul is an emotional dawn-to-dusk carnival of sounds
and songs, still holding on to the 60s-hearkening pop
sensibilities that defined the debut album. This time
around, however, Arnusch has let go of the
rollercoaster’s handles and thrown his arms in the air,
abandoning the strict song structures of the
Whitsundays' debut album for a more visceral and
expansive sound. Arnusch manages to combine the
harmonic textural elements of the Byrds, in songs like
“I Can't Get Off of my Cloud", with the sincerity and
distress of Galaxie 500, on “Oh Madeline”. He adds a
smashing psychedelic pop hit chorus into "You Fell for
It", and then in later tracks references both the
strange alien wit of heroic David Bowie and the
carefully sculpted noisy reverb of Ariel Pink. Despite
these subtle nods, The Whitsundays rule over a
kingdom that’s all their own, a place of
half-remembered shadows and fresh blood. It’s music
that removes the listener from the siege mentality of
this decaying world.
Arnusch is not without help - his supporting band,
which contains members of another
critically-acclaimed Edmonton group called Shout Out
Out Out Out, consists of Lyle Bell, Nickelas Johnson,
Aaron Parker, and Aiden Lucas-Buckland. The rest of
this merry band make appearances throughout the
album, which helps flesh Saul out even further.
Despite the new direction in tempo and texture that
the Whitsundays have taken with Saul, there’s a
common mood, an ethereal feeling that bonds these
songs together. To the casual listener, it may just be
another catchy pop record, and indeed the songs here
are superlatively catchy. But take heed: there's
something else at work here: inside these pop songs
is something strange, waiting to rise to the surface.
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