Spiral Beach
Ball
Sparks Music, 2007
By Sam Linton
Ahh, Spiral Beach. I swear, you kids’ll be the death of me!
Toronto’s own quartet of mischievous musical pixies (I think I can drop the patronizing voice right about here) have finally released their long-awaited second album, and it does not disappoint. Hell, that’s an understatement. Ball, Spiral Beach’s follow-up to their self-titled 2005 debut, succeeds admirably at fulfilling much of the promise of their first album.
Though it may seem an odd thing to say of the indie-pop art-rock brats (last bit of ageism, I swear!), Spiral Beach show a lot more maturity on Ball than one might expect from their last album or live shows. This is not to say that Ball lacks any of Spiral Beach’s characteristic energy or exuberance. Both qualities are on display in full effect, simply being channeled in interesting new ways.
Much of the album does what the last one did so well: provide high-energy dance rock with enough musical eclecticism to keep even jaded listeners interested. What is happening in Ball that’s exciting, however, is an expansion of that eclectic aesthetic into the borders of genre-sampling. “Made of Stone,” the album’s second song, has a clearly “salsa-esque” quality to its leading rhythm line, reminding this old-timer of Sabbath’s classic “Supernaut” (I’m not that old, but my cultural touchstones sure are). Other songs all have different genre-stamps across them: “Pedestrian” has a whole “Stray Cat Strut” thing going on, “Rocket Fuel” has back-country rockabilly stank written all over it, and I don’t know enough space-rock to clearly define what’s going on in “We Saw Ghosts,” but there’s something there and it intrigues the hell outta me.
The point is, though, that Spiral Beach has clearly been delving deeper into their musical repertoire for this album, and it shows, and it’s good. They’re still clearly Spiral Beach; part of the whole appeal of their music is that it’s impossible to imagine it coming from anyone else. And for all the experimentation on this disk, the clearest influence on Ball’s sound is the band’s own musical aesthetic. Any influences that they have taken in for this album have been molded to fit the sound of Spiral Beach, and emphatically not the other way around. Let me tell you, these tykes could teach their elders a thing or two about integrity.
In case I haven’t made it abundantly clear, Ball delivers. It brings the noise, the fun, the styles, the goods, and the talent. Nothing on the album falls flat, the group performs incredibly well together — even the lyrics make slightly more sense than on the first album. All in all, a solid effort with great results. No need to see me after class!
