OFF THE RECORD: Sam Roberts - Love at the End of the World

(Courtesy of Universal Music Canada.)

Some people believe that Sam Roberts is the heir apparent to the The Tragically Hip, ready to step in as the artist of choice for the beer-swilling Canadian everyman. But those people clearly didn’t listen to 2006’s Chemical City, Sam Roberts’ second album release, and first album recorded with his full band. With it, he showed a willingness to go beyond the radio-friendly hits of his critically-lauded debut, and infused his music with an earthy psychedelia that felt perfectly natural paired with Roberts’ passionate lyrical plea for respect of the natural world. In short, he was showing signs of artistic growth.

It’s a shame therefore, to see him retreat to the more basic sounds and song structures of We Were Born in a Flame for this year’s Love at the End of the World. That’s not to say the Sam Roberts Band is courting commercial success (only “Them Kids”, the album’s leadoff single, really sounds like a potential hit), but it does make for a less experimental, more predictable listen.

Case in point, the title track, unable to decide whether it wants to be a howling rave-up or a bluesy shuffle, splits the difference between the two and in no way lives up to the excitement its moniker hints at. It’s a strange way to start an album. Luckily, “Stripmall Religion”, “Oh Maria” and “Lions of the Kalahari” (which follow in rapid succession) more than make up for that. “Stripmall Religion” in particular shows Roberts, if not snarling at the commercialism of twenty-first century life, then at least baring his teeth at it, with a chorus of “Yeah your stripmall religion / Is making me a belligerent man / In spite of TV confessions / Oh I still do the best I can”. Unfortunately though, Roberts’ attempts to rail against society are often as superficial as what they seek to critique. In the second verse of “Stripmall Religion”, Roberts is content to describe the shootings at Montreal’s Dawson College with lines like “Now there’s bloodshed in my hometown / And there was bloodshed / There were kids shot down” rather than risk providing any controversial insight on the tragedy.

Overall, Love at the End of the World is at once mellower and more biting than its predecessors. The organic sound that suffuses the album provides a nice counterpoint to the more caustic lyrical explorations such as “Stripmall Religion” and “Them Kids”, but smothers the lesser material such as the meandering six-minute-long “Waking the Dead”. It all makes for very pleasant, non-threatening listening, but it’s hard not to feel that Sam Roberts has backed himself into a corner musically.

In “Sundance”, Roberts sings “And even the Sundance Kid / Would find it hard to shoot his way out / Of the hole I’m in”. That may be so, but I certainly hope that Sam Roberts comes out guns-a-blazing on his next album.