Montreal's Soft Canyon are the latest in a recent outcropping of bandsattempting to recreate the power and majesty of 1970's Neil Young-stylepsychedelic-inflected guitar rock. They are also in the unfortunateposition of having named themselves Soft Canyon, a strange choice giventhe fact that Canyon, a Washington D.C. band with a strikingly similarsound, have just recently released their album Empty Roomsto wide critical acclaim. Recording an album inspired by 70's arenarock under such a similar band name makes this Canadian five-piece seema little like copyists, even if they came up with the idea first, whichis doubtful. Furthering their unlucky destiny, their first album Broken Spirit, I Will Mend Your Wings is not nearly as good as Canyon's Empty Rooms,falling far short of the bar set by their obvious influences. Thisincredibly brief album tries and fails to recreate the epic sweep ofNeil Young's Zuma. Their tepid guitar pop has little to offerthe listener, being entirely derivative in a largely uninteresting way.Where Canyon's Empty Rooms was an awe-inspiring set ofmajestic, atmospheric guitar anthems in the mould of "Cortez theKiller", Soft Canyon's Broken Spirit is a snore-inducing half hour ofover-produced, under-written songs that sound more like those late-70'salbums Young phoned in because of contractual obligations. SoftCanyon's vocalist has an annoying, unpolished presence, and the lyricsare lukewarm amalgams of teenage love poetry and fake mysticism. Also,these average pop songs are not given enough room to breathe, mostending before the four-minute mark. Neil Young's spacious,"canyon-esque" guitar solos were the key element in his magical rock n'roll, but the instrumentalists in Soft Canyon are not talented enoughto stand on their own. To cover up for the dearth of musical invention,Broken Spirit's producer has added a number of laughable psychedelicinterludes that seem terribly out of place. By the time I reached thefinal, failed seven-minute epic "We Threw Our Love Into The Universe,"I just wanted to hear the other, superior Canyon. Soft Canyon need togo back to the drawing board for their next record, or they run therisk of creating another disposable cliché of an album destined to beunfavorably compared to their American counterparts.samples:
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