New music from The Sheepdogs
No Simple Thing first album of new songs in three years for The Sheepdogs
Summer is not a time for records that weigh you down.
I don’t believe I’m alone in thinking that.
During the all-too-short months of an East Coast summer, many of us, myself included, tend to gravitate more towards records that pick us up and take us to a place that’s a lot more fun to be around. I’ve got one for you. No Simple Thing is the first album of new songs in three years from The Sheepdogs, the Saskatoon quintet that went from being a great band with a predominantly regional following to a great band with an international following after it made the front cover of Rolling Stone in August of 2011.
Recorded in Montreal at Mixart Studios, the recording facility built by Mahogany Rush’s Frank Marino, this six-song EP once again sees the band embracing its classic rock ’n’ roll influences, from the southern blues and boogie of acts like the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd to the swamp rock of CCR and the wheatfield soul of The Guess Who with a little T-Rex on the side.
Dual lead guitars and solid vocal harmonies are still the order of the day here and hopefully always will be. And it’s obvious they’ve continued to work hard to take everything up another notch because they have indeed taken things up a notch.
Ewan Currie, the band’s principal songwriter, put it this way.
“Like an experienced chef, the band keeps honing their recipes, constantly creating more complex yet subtle flavours.”
All six tracks were laid down live with every member on-site in a sprawling studio with old-school monitors on mammoth two-inch analog tape.
“Unlike a lot of other remotely tracked pandemic rock, the Sheepdogs’ bubble of camaraderie enabled them to focus completely, with little else to do in COVIDrestricted
Montreal than kick out the jams,” a spokesman for their record label said.
Clearly that arrangement served the band and the material well because it really is a cohesive mix. And they sound great.
Speaking to the new material, Ewan said recording together during the pandemic was like finding a life raft after floating in the ocean for 90 days.
“We were itching to play music and, above all else, some human interaction.”
The songs penned for this record are firmly rooted in the past but are as fresh as tomorrow.
Top tracks include the opening track Rock and Roll (Ain’t No Simple Thing), a great little grinder which pays tribute to the mysterious healing powers of rock music, Keep On Loving You, the Steve Miller-esque Singing In The Band, described as an ode to working musicians and Talk It Over, a slow mover which urges people to try and listen to one another and understand where people are coming from.
“We’re not overtly preachy, but this one was a reaction to seeing all the fighting on social media and everywhere else in the last year,” Currie says.
This is a short set, but it’s a good one.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Doug Gallant is a freelance writer and well-known connoisseur of a wide variety of music. His On Track column will appear in The Guardian every second Thursday. To comment on what he has to say or to offer suggestions for future reviews, email him at dpagallant@gmail.com.