Smash-Hit Combination
Twice Removed - Sloan (Blast from the Past Sunday)
Sloan is a band that I’ve wanted to cover here on Ear Bites pretty much since it began. So why the heck haven’t I? Truth is, I don’t know. I have a hunch it’s due to a little bit of overthinking — for all the times I want to talk about them, I wonder if I’ll get everything across, really give them the justice I feel they deserve. Well, a few days ago I got this impulse to listen to Twice Removed, and after doing so once, twice… several times, I knew that today had to be the day, and Twice Removed had to be the album. I’m lucky to have parents who introduced me to Sloan from a young age, and their music is like a soundtrack to my life. When I was little, I was partial to Between the Bridges. In high school I couldn’t stop listening to One Chord to Another. But now that I’m in college, I’ve found myself leaning on Twice Removed more than ever, and so its an album that’s really close to my heart. How could it not be? It’s one of the most rockin’ collection of tunes out there, a smash-hit combination of bright harmonies, head-bopping beats and a perfect balance of electrically energetic and carefully calming songs to top it all off!
Twice Removed starts off strong from the very beginning, situating the listener in the sweetly catchy world of “Penpals”. Now this one’s an OPENER if I ever heard one! We’ve got stacked harmonies in a chorus full of “la-las”, we’ve got heavy snare punctuating every trail-off verse, a strip-down bridge with just a voice and a bass drum, lyrics ripped straight from foreign letters to Kurt Cobain…the list goes on and on, as you can probably imagine. The line “you are surely special” is forever stitched on an embroidery in our kitchen made by my mom, so maybe I’m a little biased towards this one. But one listen will teach you all you need to know about Sloan, and I stand firm behind that.
They don’t take a second off, because directly following “Penpals” is another one of my favorites, the terrific power tune known as “I Hate My Generation”. The song features one of my favorite Sloan occurrences, with the feature of trade-off vocals as opposed to one lead singer. To be honest, it would have been perfectly fine with one person, but the conversational aspect that arises with two vocalists makes this song shine exceedingly bright. I’ve always loved the discrepancy between the lyrics and the actual music, with this tension-filled melody accompanying words that seem way less intense when you compare the two. Then you got the chorus, where the sound gets brighter for a moment (mostly due to the excellent addition of a tambourine), only to plunge you right back into these really heavy, fuzzy guitars that play a pretty intimidating lick. The last “reservations/generations” harmonies are to die for, and the resolve-chord “ooo” ending is a great way to end one of their greatest songs.
Another classic is “Coax Me”, coming in strong at track four. This is a classic example of Sloan’s stick-in-your-head brand of lyrics, with lines like “If I drink concentrated OJ/Can I think Consolidated’s okay?” and “She was feelin’ pretty apathetic” having this uncanny ability to never leave your brain, even when it feels like you’ve forgotten them. The hop-skip melody of the verses is something that has always set this one apart for me, with certain words dropping notes suddenly and without warning. It has this weird beat that sort of forces you to keep engaged with the song, a perfect strategy to launch it straight into the hearts of those who listen to it!
Track 5 is just shy of halfway through the album, and yet “Bells On” is by far the standout of Twice Removed, and perhaps Sloan’s entire discography for me. The first time I really listened to this song it knocked the breath right out of me, and that’s not an exaggeration in the slightest. “Bells On” is a musical masterpiece, a tune that really makes you FEEL the words through the music, the rare type of song that feels so intimate that it could isolate someone in a room full of people if they were listening to it. The carefully calculated crescendos and decrescendos of the instrumental never seem to interrupt the steady tone of the devastatingly resigned feel to it that encapsulates the heartbreaking inner monologue of the lyrics. I really do think this is a song that has to be heard to be believed, but just know that I genuinely consider it to be one of the greatest.
A Sloan album is never without a stellar ending, and this claim is proven by the amazing closer that is “I Can Feel It”. In direct contrast to “Penpals”, this one is much calmer, one that I think should serve as a template for what a wind-down tune is supposed to be. The guitar has one of the warmest sounds I’ve ever heard, something that makes this song feel comforting from the very start. A simple two-part harmony makes this one stand out, with voices that fit together perfectly. The choice to end on a chord that doesn’t feel quite finished is something I personally love, because it just inspires people to hit the replay button that much sooner. Hats off for that!
Like I said, Twice Removed has been a steady presence for pretty much all of my life, but its becoming closer to my heart with every listen. It genuinely has a song for every occasion, and its one of the first I find to show to my friends if they ask me for music recommendations. As silly as it sounds, Twice Removed is an album that I really think shows all different phases of life; from the young love of “Snowsuit Sound” to the fall-back panic of “Worried Now”, the outside reluctance but inner excitement of “I Hate My Generation”, the world-crumbling devastation of “Bells On”… I’d venture to say that Twice Removed is one of, if not the most human albums to ever be released, and for that it should go down in history. Taught in classes! Played on the streets! Okay, that might be a bit much. But I know that when I have a family one day, I’ll be passing Twice Removed down like my most precious heirloom because I appreciate my parents doing the same for me more than they will ever know.
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