Northern Passages

by 
AlbumFeb 10 / 201711 songs, 34m 48s
Country Rock Alt-Country
Noteable

Recorded in the basement of Dallas and Travis’ parents’ home north of Toronto over the winter of 2015, the familiar surroundings and lack of distractions resulted in a consistent feel, despite the eclecticism at the heart of The Sadies’ sound. The psych-folk flourishes on tracks such as “Riverview Fog” are no mere homage; this is the sound of our inscrutable world, and how we manage to survive in it. Kurt Vile appears on “Easy (Like Walking).” The Sadies are a band that fans cling to like a closely guarded secret, with each new release fulfilling the promise to reach further, for all of our sakes, not just their own. With Northern Passages, the time has come to make room for more on this wild acid-folk-country-punk trip, and trust me, we’ll be better off because of it.

B

The musical universe mapped by The Sadies is finite yet expansive. Working purely with tools that would’ve been available 50 years ago, the Canadian foursome routinely squeezes new life from the cornerstones of 20th-century guitar music: classic country, psychedelic folk-rock, Nuggets garage, and even surf and…

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8 / 10

Northern Passages opens with "Riverview Fog," a song in the form of a letter (or maybe a phone call) to the Sadies' reclusive old friend Ric...

7.0 / 10

Hard-hitting, electric garage-a-billy rounds out the sweet panged steel and prophetic pluckiness of The Sadies' Northern Passages.

7 / 10

75 %

The Sadies never quite do what you’d expect.