In Tune
Our Lady Peace's latest CD is a mix of rock and politics - and a mixed bag
By:  Brian Mulligan
August 30, 2005
Richmond.com

Upon entering Our Lady Peace’s Web site, the confession "1165 days were needed to record 'Healthy in Paranoid Times'…" appears, hanging mid-center on screen. And immediately you know this wasn't an easy process.

It took three-plus years for lead singer Raine Maida, bassist Duncan Coutts, drummer Jeremy Taggart and guitarist Steve Mazur to produce a follow-up to their double platinum-selling CD "Gravity," and the entire time the band walked a thinning line toward breaking up.

Time kept stretching on. Tempers blazed. Producers got fired, rehired and then quit. And when the smoke cleared, Our Lady Peace was sitting atop a mountain of songs. A massive collection of 45 tracks had been written and recorded for "Healthy" and after the painstaking process of putting it all together, the band started arguing over which songs to keep and which songs to chuck.

The final scoreboard shows the CD pared down to 13 tracks - some good, some bad, but the hard work showing through on each one. The grind is so apparent, you half expect the CD to be drenched in the blood and sweat of its members after cracking it open.

"Where Are You," the first single off the album, is an aggressive, up-tempo song with a pulsating beat. Guitars pound with intensity and the lyrics ring with a worried sense of what the future holds; a theme that runs around the album like an unruly child. But while it's in rotation at radio stations nationwide, the song is not accessible enough to match the incessant airplay and popularity of the band's last big hit, "Somewhere Out There." There's just no catch in the song, nothing to add to the replay value.

What "Where Are You" will do is give you a clear image of what the rest of the CD is like. Gone is the free-spirited vibe of past OLP offerings, as the band has infused "Healthy" with a continual political undercurrent that leaked in through the hiatus.

Having spent the lengthy period between CDs involved with the charity War Child and visiting poverty-stricken third world nations, Maida acknowledged (in a press release on their MySpace Web site) that, "You can't help but let that stuff seep into the lyrics… and even the emotion we're trying to get out of the music."

So songs like "Wipe That Smile off Your Face" and "Will the Future Blame Us" drop any mainstream appeal to instead commentate on social atmosphere. There's a handful of radio anthems scattered about, but for the most part the hooks have been cast aside and replaced by urgency in the lyrics. While not their best music, it is their most important.

Highlights from the album include the soft, peaceful melody of "Al Genina (Leave the Light On)," which flows like a poem put to music and "Angels Losing Sleep," a slowly building song that powers up to an energetic refrain (and makes the best use of Maida's signature voice).

The biggest complaint with "Healthy in Paranoid Times" is one harbored with past releases like "Spiritual Machines" - it feels rocky. For every snappy, livewire "World on a String" there's an equally off-putting "Apology," a song which milks Maida's vocals so badly that's he's over-accentuating every other syllable.

What you're left with is a band that alternates between sounding like a bunch of unified rockers and a group that's just not having any fun. It's a solid effort, but in the end, should it have been such hard work?