SOW: Everlasting by The Dears
March 26, 2004 | 
1 Comments
The Artist: The Dears
The Song: Everlasting
The Album: Nor the Dahlias: The Dears 1995-1998
Released 2001
First off I need to say I’m sorry for missing last week. I was just too busy seeing music to post about it.
For this week’s song I really wanted to do highlight one of the bands I saw during SXSW. It was hard, man, too damn hard! Not because there were so many good bands to choose from — no — although that was a problem as well.
It was because it was very hard for me to actually get ahold of the music to listen to it. Many of the bands I saw were independents or imports. Surprisingly I was not able to leverage the Web very well to gain access to their music. I couldn’t even illegally download most of it!
In any-case I did manage to get my hands on Nor the Dahlias: The Dears 1995-1998, a very nice album by one of the best bands I saw that week, The Dears.
They’re a band from Toronto and, shockingly, they have much in common with The Stills.
The Dears produce very sophisticated pop, as is evidenced by this week’s song “Everlasting”, much like many of my favorite 80’s bands. They remind me quite a bit of The Style Council, without really sounding like them much. There is a liberal dash of older brit-pop in there as well.
They put on a great show and if they ever come your way I highly recommend them.
Recommended if you like: The Stills, The Smiths, Broken Social Scene, Old Blur, Jesus Jones
Filed under: Song of The Week
Comments
1. AJ said:
Hi D.Keith – long time reader, first time commenter.
Thanks for posting about my favourite band – it’s great that they are finally getting the exposure they deserve after years in the indie trenches.
A small correction – The Dears are actually from Montreal, not Toronto.
Readers may want to know that the “…Nor The Dahlias” album is a contractual-obligation record of early demos that was put out without much enthusiasm by the group. It’s the old, old Dears, of whom the only original member left is chief Dear, Murray Lightburn. It’s fun, but basically just thinly veiled Smiths / Blur pastiche, and the band have disowned it – Murray has had to work hard to outgrow the lazy “black Morrissey / Albarn” comparisons in the press.
Their newer albums, such as End Of A Hollywood Bedtime Story, Orchestral Pop Noir Romantique, the Protest EP and the newest, No Cities Left, are light-years removed from those humble origins – and are influenced by a much more diverse set of musicians such as French soundtrack composer Francis Lai, Scott Walker, hometown peers Godspeed You Black Emperor, and much, much more.
They have really grown into their own sound now - they sound like “The Dears” to me, impossible to pigeonhole. Bilingual, multiethnic, a truly small-c catholic Montreal mix of vintage records, doomed romance and existential joy.
Posted on October 8, 2004 03:01 PM | #
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