Canasta: We Were Set Up

Music blogging has been good to me. It's turned me into a tastemaker. Maybe I started off just wanting to talk about one of my favorite things in the world - music, but over time I have come to realize my passion for songs has morphed into a keen sense for identifying the fantastic, the merely enjoyable, and the plain mediocre. The perks are also great...I get an average of two cds a week from new, established, indie and mainstream bands. Some I like, some I wouldn't play a second time. Each time I open up a new one, I am filled with expectation, much like a kid on christmas morning, and when I discover some great new sound, it's so intoxicating I hit the blog immediately.

Four songs into We Were Set Up, the latest LP from hardly known Chicago indie pop sextex, Canasta, and I knew I had to recommend it. Of course, it could be that I was so impressed with one of the most catchy songs I have heard this year, the orchestral "Slow Down Chicago" which showcases the surefire confident delivery of velvet-toned vocalist Matt Priest (instrument of choice: "The Tambo"), the carefully orchestrated backing vocals of the entire band (everyone is a vocalist) and the well-timed introduction of horned instruments to the song's staccato melodies. But then by the time fourth song "Impostors" ran its course, my inner Belle & Sebastian had been awakened. But of course that is a lazy comparison, and this is no more apparent than on the pop-rock mid-tempo burn of "Heads Hurt Better" or the folk-rock-sy "Just A Star". Somehow these guys manage to sound like a lot of your favorite bands...from the Drive-By Truckers to the New Pornographers, Belle & Sebastian to Calexico...without sounding derivative or sloppy. Album closer "All this Dust" is an lovely blend of chamber pop, folk rock and Shins-que melodies, cleverly maneuvered around a symphony of voices. Smart pop eclectica with impressive vocals. Seriously recommended. Here's some sample tracks off the cd.

Microphone Song
Slow Down Chicago
Sympathetic Vibrations

Buy the cd or songs.

If you are in the Chicago area this weekend, go see these guys play with Voxtrot, Dorian Minor and Yellow Fever at the Empty Bottle. Have no idea where that is but you Chicago-ites or Chicagoose will know.