A missive on the back of their latest album, Darker Circles, bemoans lazy critics propensity to lump The Sadies in with the “alt-country” bandwagon. It’s a fair enough gripe for a band that have consistently defied easy categorization over the past 8 albums since emerging from the Ontario scene in the late nineties. Since that time they have collaborated with the likes of The Tragically Hip, The Deep Dark Woods, Andre Williams, John Doe of L.A Punks X and Neko Case, and along the way developed a near legendary reputation in their native country as one of the finest live acts around.

Last years Country Club, a record of Country standards recorded with John Doe seems to have acted as something of a palette cleanser for the band. Where previous albums have been recorded in a fast and furious manner, living documents of the aforementioned live shows, Darker Circles seems to find the Good brothers (Dallas and Travis) stepping on the brakes a little, allowing the record to develop over time with the guidance of former Jayhawk Gary Louris on production. While not wholly a departure from previous records, Darker Circles sees the band continue to hone their unique combination of country and bluegrass chops, cowpunk and psychedelic rock. Unlike previous records however, there is only room for one instrumental : the cosmic spaghetti western twangery of album closer ‘Ten More Songs’ which comes on like Duane Eddy meets Ennio Morricone.

Darker Circles proves to be a fairly apt title for the record, as The Sadies seem to be heavier of heart than normal, as they navigate issues of failure, regret and disappointment in equal measure. Time passes quickly and “The only place thats left to go is down”. Opener ‘Another Year Again’ jangles along, before developing in to a full on distorted garage-psych fest, Companion piece ‘Another Day Again’ carries on in this freakbeat vein, yomping along on the Good brothers dueling guitars and blistering runs up and down the fretboard, while ‘Postcards’ shows the band can still pull off the odd country-pop barnstormer- all fine-picking and swooping pedal steel. ‘Whispering Circles’ and ‘Idle Tomorrows’ are awash with finely picked guitar parts that chime around each other and sweet vocal harmonies that could happily sit alongside The Byrds, CSN or early R.E.M.

While there is no doubting that the sound The Sadies have produced over the years have made liberal use of the sounds of the past, theirs is not a misguided retro rehash. Rather they have fused elements of the music they love to create something uniquely, personally theirs. And if you like your music with a twang, this could just be one of your records of the year. But, please, whatever you do, don’t call them alt-country. There’s so much more to this band than that.