Tiger Talk
Yukon Blonde
Dine Alone Records.
SCQ Rating: 70%
If the giant chorus
of “whoa”’s that kick-start “My Girl” don’t fully expose the ambitions behind Tiger
Talk, the second track “Radio”, which insists that there’s “nothing on the
radio” over a Billy Idol-like percussive thud, should spell it out: Yukon
Blonde want it all. To cure the radio’s chronic woes, to tour Canada as a
top-tier bar-band -- the sky’s the limit for this axe-wielding trio. And armed
with plenty of rock and roll clichés and stylistic shifts, Tiger Talk looks poised
to reach that audience so starved for fresh meat.
The hooks are
plentiful and breezy, culminating into the sort of album you enjoy hearing
blared from a summer cottage but not enough to ask who’s playing. The catchiest
track, single “Stairway”, doubles as their smartest too, with a faultless
guitar chug and palpable sense of yearning unheard amid Can-Con’s roster since
Matt Mays. Other highlights, like the synth-assisted rocker “Six Dead Tigers”
and majestic closer “Sweet Dee”, manage to flesh out new dimensions to Yukon
Blonde’s pop persona but they’re fleeting when so much of Tiger Talk seeks only
to please the masses. And while these ten tracks should succeed in that goal,
it’s a timid objective for a band that sounds capable of digging deeper.
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