STREAM Vancougar - "Obvious"
STREAM Vancougar - "Distance"

I never got around to doing a "Best of 2008" list but Vancougar's Canadian Tuxedo would have made my list.

In my mind, Canadian Tuxedo ranks up there with Blondie's first disc. Vancougar's style of music combines 60's style girl group harmonies, AM Radio pop, and garage-rock. This is the sort of record that Blondie should have made in place of the deplorable The Curse of Blondie disc a few years back.

Producer Dave Carswell (The New Pornographers, Tegan and Sara, etc.) gives this disc the perfect balance between singer/guitarist Eden Fineday's soaring vocals and the driving beat of the band. Drummer C.C. Rose gives the band a punk back-beat which is then complemented by Becca Stewart's fuzzed-out bass lines and the wonderful garage keys of Megan Johnson. Eight of the disc's ten songs are bouncy power-pop tunes and the last two are "Brill Building" torch songs. Lyrically, the themes are about love, broken romance, and the challenges of adulthood.

"Philadelphia" is one of my favorite songs on the disc and you can check out a live video of the song below.



Canadian Tuxedo is great stuff -- it is the sort of CD that you can play over and over again as there isn't a bad song on the disc.

Links:
Vancougar's MySpace Profile