on 2011-03-16 dscanland Said:

Quote: ""Naveed" is what the Foo Fighters would sound like if they were any good." AWESOME! Naveed is indeed a great album. One of OLP's finest and it does get better with age as well.
Not Rated

Review:

on 2011-03-16 CharlesMartel Said:

This is a totally different album to the other I have from this Canadian outfit, "Spiritual Machines". I have to say, that while it is reasonable enough, it is totally different from what that other, chronologically later album, might have led me to expect when I bought it. "Spiritual Machines" was an indie album of excellent proportions, the best of its year in my view. On the other hand, "Naveed" betrays the influences behind the band when they first started up. "Naveed" is a grunge album, drawn from the same stable as "Fantastic Planet" by Failure, grunge from the tail end of that particular genre when it was losing its appeal and Indie was looking for a new label on which to hang itself (and ended up with the pathetic idea of post-grunge). "Naveed" is what the Foo Fighters would sound like if they were any good. The only real connection between the two albums is a loose idea of a concept album, though the concept behind "Naveed" is a bit amorphous in my view.

What causes "Naveed", indeed the whole band, to stand out is the vocal gymnastics of Raine Maida, whose ability to suddenly jump a couple of octaves gives each track a distinctive edge, though sometimes it can be overdone as it is on "Under Zenith". Maida's singing technique would later be put to excellent use on "Spiritual Machines". But Maida is not the only strength the band has. Drummer Jeremy Taggart puts in a number of impressive performances, particularly on "Starseed" and "The Birdman". Guitarist Mike Turner weighs in with a mighty contribution of distortion-heavy guitars and dense riffs without ever losing sight of the need to maintain the quiet-verse/loud-chorus format so beloved of grunge everywhere.

What we have then is an album full of technically superior grunge tracks which come with the full array of decent melodies. What then could possibly go wrong with it? Well, after repeated listens it becomes more difficult to pick out individual highlights and separate them as having a distinctness from all the others. Once you remove the opening track, "The Birdman" and their biggest commercial success, "Starseed", only "Supersatellite" stands out as distinctive because of its choppy, almost funky, upbeat riff. That is not to downplay the quality of the other tracks, but just that they become rather indistinguishable from each other after a while. Unless you listen closely it is not hard to forget that you are listening to a series of individual songs rather than as a sort of background wallpaper to whatever activity you are undertaking at any given time.

At the end of the day, this represents the problem I have with this album. It is not a bad album by any means and can be rather enjoyable if you take the time to listen to it repeatedly. The problem is that I will forever compare it with "Spiritual Machines" which is not only a completely different, but aesthetically far superior work. Each of the tracks on "Naveed" is buried under its succeeding track and while the tracks are all good, especially if one pops up on a shuffle selection on my iPod, collectively they do not bring the magic I might have expected. Our Lady Peace may have got their start, and their first success, with this album, but it is hardly something which is going set the world alight. It certainly did not presage the brilliance of "Spiritual Machines". Thankfully, they did not make another one like it.
Rating: 7/10