Over the past year I’ve started picking up Guess Who albums –
\nand
\nCanned Wheat<\/i> was proclaimed to be the masterpiece, the one
\nthat defined the career of the Canadian rockers. For the most part,
\nthis is a great album – but not the best in their catalog.<\/p>\n
The album starts out with a fiery “No Time,” backed up by an
\nintense fuzz-guitar sound and Burton Cumming’s distinctive vocals.
\nThe aggression and power at the end of this cut are overpowering;
\nat five and a half minutes, this isn’t the track you hear on the
\nradio. This is nicely contrasted by the somewhat repetitive
\n“Minstrel Boy,” which seems to get boring after a few cycles of the
\nchorus. It’s highlighted by a nice bridge, but other than that it’s
\nmostly forgettable.<\/p>\n
“Laughing” is a pretty familiar song; it’s easy for some songs,
\nlike this one, to slip quietly into the background when playing on
\nthe radio. That hardly does justice to it – this song is easily one
\nof the best pieces of music still played on the dial. Burton’s
\nimmense emotional shifts, the simple rhythms that pull together
\nwith organs, jazz guitar, vocal overdubs – all of these combine to
\ncreate this masterpiece. We’re given a piano coda immediately
\nfollowing.<\/p>\n
The mostly-restrained elegance of “Laughing” is followed up by
\n“Undun,” a very powerful and intense ride. It starts off with mere
\nhints of its final throes. The scat, followed by a flute solo,
\nhighlights the middle section nicely. This song swaggers along for
\na while, until nearly the end, at which point the drums seem to
\nbecome more urgent, the vocals more strained, and it builds to a
\nslow intensity – not intense in volume, or tempo, but feeling. The
\ncoda, irrelevant as always, plays nicely with stereo effects and
\nlight guitar plucking. Listen through headphones. “6 AM Or Nearer”
\nplays with flute, some pretty laid-back arrangements, and a chorus
\nthat doesn’t really stick in the mind after the first listen. It’s
\nnot a terrible song – but it does seem to be more filler than
\nexpected.<\/p>\n
“Old Joe” is a pretty depressing song about an old man who,
\nevidently, is pitied by the singer. It’s a bit raw, which works
\nwell, and it doesn’t linger – better than filler, but not
\noutstanding.<\/p>\n
The next song, “Of a Dropping Pin” is everything a radio single
\nneeds to be. It’s energetic, fast – and it has a hook-laden chorus
\nthat stays with the listener even after the first listen. “Key” –
\nwhich ends up degenerating into a very interesting, extended drum
\nsolo – languishes at first, slow and majestic, until eventually
\ntransitioning into a sudden burst of bombastic and entertaining
\nguitar, played back and forth from left to right, and then leaving
\noff into the aforementioned drums. The closer, “Fair Warning,” is a
\nbit of an odd track. It’s got a gravely voice and jazzy, bluesy
\nguitar blended in the back. Ostensibly it warns the listener away
\nfrom being a Rock Star.<\/p>\n
The two bonus tracks are good, and certainly a worthy addition,
\nbut they aren’t of the level of most of the other tracks on the
\nalbum.
\nCanned Wheat<\/i> truly is a continuous album; the interludes
\nbetween just about every song reinforce this. It was meant to be
\nlistened to in a unit, and while listening from start to finish the
\nimpression of the music cements itself in the mind. Truly a classic
\n– greater than the sum of its parts, although perhaps the Guess Who
\nwould do better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":26057,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6674],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-37268","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-guess-who","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37268"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37268"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}