![]() (Fortunately, there was a whole generation of them about to emerge.) After Celebration Rock, run-of-the-mill, fashion-plate indie-rock wasn’t going to cut it anymore. They made me desperate to hear other new bands that were ready to carry the torch forward, no matter the prevailing trends. Japandroids sent me scurrying back to the earnest rock records I had once loved and thought I had outgrown. With their wall-to-wall, shout-it-out anthems - in which very chorus is triumphant, every lyric is unabashedly purple, and no “whoa!” is left unfurled - the Canadian punk duo reshaped my expectations for what rock ‘n’ roll should be in the ’10s. ![]() Feelings sound so good cranked up to 11.An album primarily concerned with drinking, smoking, the passage of time, and deathless rock ‘n’ roll mythology, Japandroids’ second LP Celebration Rock felt for some of us like a paradigm-shifter back in 2012. And their whoa-oh refrains will slay at festivals this summer. The electronic-spiked I’m Sorry (For Not Finding You Sooner) and Arc of Bar are both claustrophobic and widescreen, and not unlike a pumped-up Placebo. North East South West, meanwhile, is a Canadian punk take on patriotic country music, with a chorus that sounds like they’ve got a battalion behind them. ![]() The title track has rousing get-in-a-moshpit-and-hug-your-mates choruses but it’s also pleasantly grown-up: emo-rock for those who still wear plaid shirts and skate shoes but who also now brew their own craft ale. ![]() The duo have nailed the art of the crunching, life-affirming crescendo. Previous records had a lo-fi garage edginess to them – skittish drums, lyrical yelps, cavalcades of crunch – but Near to the Wild Heart of Life, their third album, is so luxuriously gnarled it roars out of the speakers like the Revenant bear. Few others do gorgeous distortion like Vancouver’s Japandroids. ![]()
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