The Most Serene Republic – Population

The first time I heard the opening track from Population a smile shot across my face. After you hear something akin to an orchestra warming up in a grand concert hall, a three minute instrumental shines on you like a beam of sunshine through the darkest of clouds. Sounding like the dawn of a new day, it’s a wonderful way to start the album.Other tracks like ‘Present of the Future End’ draw out similar upbeat emotions, though perhaps from listening to the lyrics, all may not be as pleasant as it seems. "Eager skins that light the fires. Autists hungry for the match. Drinking fossils of the liars" and "Human beings have been solved and now they want to fake us" point towards deeper issues than the blissfully unaware music suggests.While having seven band members allows a gallon of creative juices to flow, it can get a bit overwhelming at times with a large part of the drumming on the record quite disorientating. Indeed, the rapid-fire delivery of sticksman Tony Nesbitt-Larking means the vocals are delivered quickly in order to keep up, so any message that they may be trying to get across is often lost. Amidst the furore and chaos of tracks like ‘Why So Looking Back’ there are others however, like ‘Career in Shaping Clay’ and ‘Battle Hymn Of The Republic’, which carry their ideas off with a bit more focus and are all the better for it.When The Most Serene Republic became the first signing to Arts & Crafts that had no connection to the divine Broken Social Scene, much was expected of the Canadian youngsters. Population is the self-produced second album from them and even though they haven't reached the quality of their illustrious labelmates, it is an album that will challenge you with every listen. You won't know where to point your ears next as different sounds fly at you from every conceivable angle, though whether they all need to be there is debateable. A tendency to overcomplicate things doesn't spoil the album for me as such because at times it is very very good, it just grates after a while and makes the listening experience just that little bit less enjoyable. 69%mp3:> The Most Serene Republic: Sherry And Her Butterfly NetLinks The Most Serene Republic [myspace] [twenty questions]