The Most Serene Republic – …And the Ever Expanding Universe

There’s pretty much one thing you need to know about Canada’s The Most Serene Republic: they’re signed to Arts & Crafts. A&C, for those not in the know, is the record label founded by Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew, essentially for the purpose of putting out his and his bandmates’ material, whether central to the BSS canon or side-projects. Cue early releases from Leslie Feist, Brendan Canning, Stars and naturally, Kevin Drew himself. In 2003, The Most Serene Republic became the first band not directly connected with the “BSS Massive” (as I believe is the name of their tentative hip-hop vehicle) to sign for the label. The lack of direct connection, though, didn’t prevent many - albeit justified - direct comparisons. Their debut album Underwater Cinematographer took way too much unjustified criticism, for sounding just like a Broken Social Scene record. Like that could ever really be construed as a bad thing.So, the A&C thing is important for two reasons - the first, as outlined above, is that it gives you a pretty good idea of what the band are going to sound like. Much like the phrases “late-eighties Sub Pop”, or “early-nougties Constellation”, “Arts & Crafts”, in indie-music-journo-shorthand, refers to more than just a record label - it’s an ideology, a manifesto, pretty much a genre unto itself. The second important reason is that Arts & Crafts don’t really do bad releases. Whether through fortune or design, it’s difficult to recall a single album from the label that is completely lacking in merit, except that *god-awful* second Stills album.The one thing you need to know about The Most Serene Republic, is that they are an Arts & Crafts band. It’s not lazy journalism, (well, maybe a little) it’s just that that fact stands up for itself. While MSR probably don’t have the same ear for a hook as Drew/Canning/any of that other band I’ve been favourably comparing them to, they still have an excellent sense of just how, I dunno, dreamy, pop music can be. It’s a real lie down and breathe it in sort of a record, the kind you can imagine falling asleep to in the garden on a lazy summer day, and then having it populate your dreams, before waking you up with the (frankly excellent) penultimate track, synthesiser-led dance anthem ‘Don’t Hold Back, Feel a Little Longer’. At least, it should be an anthem. It’d certainly get me dancing more than Mrs Gaga. While me falling asleep to it after too much Pimms isn’t entirely meant as an insult, MSR are certainly a band better served by not giving over your total attention - which is sad, because at times they’re genuinely interesting. Give them too much, though, and their weaknesses become irritatingly apparent.All too often it gets sickly-sweet, in the way you’d expect Los Campesinos! to if they’d grown up in Ontario instead of Wales, like on ‘Heavens to Purgatory’ which lays on the intertwining male/female vocals and syrupy acoustic riff way too thick. There’s a real cluttered feeling to the album’s middle section, where the band tend to hit their real high-notes when the vocalists keep mum, leaving a little more room for their sound to grow out - see ‘Patternicity’, which, with its fantastic use of a large string section, genuinely sounds like an old Disney soundtrack. But an awesome one. It’s an album that’s soft in all the right places. Sadly, where you want to to be firm, it just sags a little too much. That sounds way too dirty.The Most Serene Republic on MySpace