Hear The End Of It?!? I don't wanna hear the end of it!

It is important for all (two) of you out there who read this blog to understand that the new Sloan album, Never Hear The End Of It, is one of the finest albums they've released in their entire career. (Yes, I realize that, of my two precious readers, one of you already knows this fact. And the other doesn't even care about music. So I guess this post is an exercise in futility. Yet I blog on.)

Never Hear The End Of It is up there with Twice Removed, One Chord To Another and Between the Bridges, and it gives me hope in the future of Sloan. I wasn't sure they'd make it, given the difficulties they've had getting their albums released in the United States and the somewhat middling success of their last non-greatest-hits release, Action Pact. I was a tad fearful of what might happen next.

This new offering has no fewer than 30 (30!) songs, and is NOT a double album. My husband has described each harmony-laden track as the sonic equivalent of the 100-calorie pack. (I am ravenously jealous that I did not come up with this metaphor.) The tracks are short, sweet, satisfying and perfectly timed: the best ones leave you wanting more, and the not-as-fabulous songs end before you have time to reach for the "skip" button. Not that there are very many not-as-fabulous songs; only two or three, tops, which is an admirable percentage when you're listening to an album with nearly as many tracks as Christ had years.

Additionally, most songs include handclaps, the most excellent "instrument" there is next to the cowbell.

It's hard to pick favorites, but a few exceptional gems rise to the top o' the Beatle-y heap:

"Fading Into Obscurity"* (This song is easily among the best songs Sloan has ever recorded. Easily. It is Chris Murphy at his most phenomenal: witty turns of phrase, self-deprecating sentiment, semi-crippling insecurity, meter changes, internal rhyme, handclaps. Of course, handclaps.)

"I Understand" (As track 14, "I Understand" sounds like it's the last song on the album. But with another 16 tracks remaining, the song's chime-y fadeout is a marvelous reminder that you still have more than half the album to enjoy. It's like that feeling you get when you wake up early Saturday morning only to realize that, thrillingly, you don't have to go to work.)

"Another Way I Could Do It" (The hey-la-la-la-las at the end of the song will be stuck in your head after one listen. Go ahead, try it.)

"Something's Wrong" (Andrew Scott at his arena rock best.)

The tragedy, if you could call it that, is that this album probably won't bring Sloan any more success than that which they've already established for themselves. Their fawning mass -- a relatively moderately-sized yet vocal and enthusiastic audience -- will always be with them. But the blog and print space devoted to other indie darlings probably won't yield to Sloan, even though Sloan could show them all a thing or two as elder statesmen of rawking out. This album is better than anything Paris Hilton's done this year; though Jay Ferguson might not weigh as much as Ms. Hilton, Never Hear The End Of It should be garnering the heiress' share of attention from the music media at the very least.

Alas, it's the cross Sloan bears. You can hear it in a lot of the lyrics on this album, especially Chris Murphy's tracks*. I only hope that they continue to find artistic satisfaction in songwriting and recording, so that those of us in the know can keep appreciating their wares.