(photo: www.nxew.ca)

The more I hear “New Goodbye” by Hey Rosetta! the more I want to love the LP it leads off.  Into Your Lungs (and around your heart and on through your blood) ticks off all the right boxes:  stadium-filling anthems?  Check.  Classic pop songs delivered flawlessly?  Check and check.  Heart and soul?  Check, check.  So why then am I still finding it so difficult to fall in love with this band the way so many others have?

When I first reviewed the album back in October last year, I asserted that Hey Rosetta! do what they do very well, but what they do lacks the depth and variety of other bands they’ve been likened to (Arcade Fire, for one).  “I’ve Been Asleep For a Long, Long Time” is a prime example of a well-written and executed song that ends up sounding like any number of same-minded fast-loud-slow-quiet ballads that I come across scanning the FM dial.  It has some brilliant moments to it, but the song doesn’t find its legs until it’s almost half-way through; a less patient music fan would have hit the skip button about 30 seconds in.

I don’t want it to sound like I’m advocating for 2-minute pop songs that go for the chorus and never look back.  I think we need bands like Hey Rosetta! who make simmering, impassioned music like “There’s An Arc” and “Tired Eyes” that unexpectedly take you on a musical journey.  I can understand full well why this album made such an impression on so many people, and by rights it’s spot on this year’s Polaris Short List is well-deserved and earned.  Like I said at the beginning of this post, I want to love this album.  I love the individual songs, so how hard could it be to love the thing as a whole?

It’s just hard enough, actually.  Too often on Into Your Lungs… the same songs follow one another, creating a roller coaster effect.  The songs starts out low, builds up, builds up, drops off, then the next song starts low, builds up, builds up, then drops off, and so on and so on.  By the time I get to “Handshake The Gangster” I’m hoping beyond hope that this song doesn’t follow the pattern, that this quiet piano lament stays this way throughout it’s six-plus minutes.  Of course I know it doesn’t.  I’ve listened enough times now to know that the only songs that come anywhere close are “Open Arms”, “We Made a Pact” and album closer “Psalm”, but three out of 12 does not a diverse record make.

I truly think with a guiding visionary producer, Hey Rosetta! have what it takes to make an epic, zeitgeist-defining Canadian album that will go down as one of the nation’s proudest moments.  Into Your Lungs… is not going to be that album, sadly, but as it’s one hell of a warm-up.

MP3: Hey Rosetta! “A Thousand Suns”
Myspace: Hey Rosetta!
Facebook: Hey Rosetta!