New music: Rat Saw God, Neil Young, Andrea Keller, Mathieu Romano

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This article was published 08/12/2023 (1013 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ROCK

Wednesday

Rat Saw God (Dead Oceans)

Year-end best-of lists have begun to crop up (watch for ours next week) and Rat Saw God, by Wednesday, is near the top of many. Even though this record was released in April, it’s never too late to circle back for a second listen. Good thing, too, as this quintet, fronted by singer/guitarist/lyricist Karly Hartzman and which features Xandy Chelmis (lap steel, guitar), MJ Lenderman (guitar), Alan Miller (drums) and Margo Schultz (bass, now departed), offers up a unique blend of thrashing, shoegazey sheets of guitar noise, arresting lyricism, muscular rock riffs and country-folk shadings.

In Bull Believer, Rat Saw God’s eight-and-a-half-minute second song, Wednesday encompasses all aspects of its sound, knitting allegorical fever dreams of a bullfight and disappointing memories of a teenage house party (replete with a Mortal Kombat reference) into a sprawling, enthralling soundscape. The song begins as a roiling indie-guitar tune, breaks down into Hartzman plaintively pleading “believe me,” recoils with a dreamy acoustic segment, then slowly builds back up again into a raging squall of guitar, bass and cymbals as Hartzman screams “finish him” (which is both a bullfight and Mortal Kombat reference).

Bull Believer is an obvious set-closer, but on Rat Saw God, listeners are only a quarter of the way into the album by the time it ends and there are plenty of gems still to come, especially Chosen to Deserve, in which the band channels its inner Drive-By Truckers sensibilities while Hartzman pulls out her best Waxahatchee voice as the song’s narrator confesses the sins of her teenage years to a partner. Quarry paints intimate pictures of downtrodden southern neighbourhoods, families and situations as Hartzman reminisces, without regret, to a breezy melody accentuated by touches of lap steel and revved up guitar riffs in the choruses.

Album closers What’s So Funny and TV in the Gas Pump, meanwhile, hint at a softer, even more melodic side. ★★★★ out of five stars

Stream these: Bull Believer, Chosen to Deserve, Quarry.

— John Kendle

ROCK

Neil Young

Before and After (Reprise)

Leave it to Neil Young to give streaming songs a whole new meaning.

On Before and After, Young delivers reinventions of 13 deep tracks as one continuous piece of mostly acoustic music, with no breaks, over 48 minutes. The tracks appear to have been recorded on Young’s solo 2019 live tour but are presented here as a single piece of music with no audience applause.

The technique creates a new, cohesive narrative by weaving together songs from disparate points over a 54-year span. It also puts the songs in a new light, placing the 78-year-old Young’s voice with all of its aging, aching beauty front and centre.

Anyone hoping to hear Young jamming out new transitions from one song to the next, a la the Grateful Dead, will be disappointed. Instead, a guitar strum here or a harmonica note there keeps the musical ball in the air.

I’m the Ocean, originally recorded with Pearl Jam on Mirror Ball in 1995, is dramatically reworked and sets the mood as the opening track. Three lesser-known Buffalo Springfield songs from the 1960s are the oldest tracks, with the album closer Don’t Forget Love from 2021’s Barn the most recent.

In between, there are songs Young first recorded with his longtime band Crazy Horse and a deep cut from one his most famous albums, 1970’s After the Goldrush. The most obscure song, If You’ve Got Love, has never appeared on an album until now.

Still, Before and After is far from essential Neil Young. It’s more of a late-career curiosity and will likely please his most devoted fans who will appreciate Young shedding new light in a beautifully stark way on some rarities that otherwise would remain buried in his vast catalog. ★★★ out of five stars

Stream these: If You’ve Got Love, Mr. Soul

— Scott Bauer, The Associated Press

JAZZ

Andrea Keller

Flicker & Polar Bird (Independent)

Andrea Keller is an Australian pianist/composer/educator whose albums are always fascinating. This new release has both new and previously recorded material with John Mackey on saxophone, Miroslav Bukovsky on trumpet and flugelhorn and Keller on piano. The trio is joined by string sections and vocalists on some tracks.

The mood is largely gentle and while often whirling with dissonance and flight, the peaceful resolution is never far away. The sixth track, Compassionately Yours, starts with a beautiful opening statement before sliding into increasingly complex and intense moments. The vocal tracks are extremely evocative. Cry Heart but Never Break is from a children’s book about loss, while Treasured Angels was commissioned to recognize a woman named Mary Chomley who established the Red Cross PoW Department during the First World War. I am a little church is an ee cummings poem of real depth.

Flicker is a five-part suite that serves as the heart of the album. Keller’s playing, compositions and leadership are outstanding throughout with the trio intimately involved, with each segment melodic and quietly rhythmic while maintaining complexity and intensity. The longest, Flicker #3, moves through shifting moods and leads into Flicker #4, which amps things up by adding more strings and stunning solos by Bukovsky and Mackey. The instruments flow around the melody to resolve perfectly. Keller and strings open Flicker #5 as the suite moves with purpose and beauty to its conclusion.

Pennies From Eve features a jaunty repeated rhythm and a spirited mood. Polar Bird opens with several minutes of a Keller solo before she is joined by Mackey. The duet becomes a trio in the last moments of another stellar track.

This album makes one simply want to start it all over again. Andrea Keller is a name you should remember as her music is uplifting and rewarding. ★★★★1/2 out of five stars

Stream: Flicker #1, Polar Bird

— Keith Black

CLASSICAL

Mathieu Romano, Aedes

Poulenc (Aparté)

In his third recording with period chamber orchestra Les Siècles, Mathieu Romano leads vocal group Aedes through two Poulenc masterworks inspired by the composer’s return to his Catholic faith after visiting France’s oldest sanctuary at Rocamadour.

First up is Litanies à la Vierge, a sacred work composed for an all-female choir and organ in 1936 that pays homage to the sanctuary’s revered black sculpture of the Virgin Mary. The singers’ conviction is palpable throughout the nearly nine-minute work that ranges from quieter a cappella passages to sudden bursts of Louis-Noel Bestion de Camboulas’s organ.

The album’s cornerstone is Stabat Mater, composed for soprano soloist, mixed choir and orchestra in honour of Poulenc’s late artist friend Christian Berard in 1950 and based on the same-titled medieval liturgical text.

Romano brings out the dramatic intensity of each of its 12 movements, with particular highlights including the driving Cujus animam gementem, and Inflammatus et accensus. Marianne Croux displays her mellifluous tone in her three sections: Vidit suum, Fac ut portem and Quando corpus, her clear soprano voice soaring up to heaven itself.

Also included is Renaissance composer Clement Janequin’s O doulx regard, o parler gratieux, described in the liner notes as an a cappella secular work that expresses “humanity’s love for the Virgin Mary,” both as an icon and as a person. Once again the choristers blend their voices together as one flowing tapestry of sound; a testament to Poulenc’s soulful music right in tune with these contemplative times. ★★★★ out of five stars

Stream these: O doulx regard, o parler gratieux; Stabat mater dolorosa; Inflammatus et accensus.

— Holly Harris