CHANGE OF HEART - IN THE WRECKAGE

Not exactly hot on the heels of the last Change of Heart album, 1997's Steelteeth, the band has followed in the footsteps of the Jesus Lizard by waiting a quarter-century to deliver an expectation-defying follow-up, the aptly titled In the Wreckage. Featuring contributions from every Change of Heart member and contributor past and present, living and dead, In the Wreckage is an honest summation of everything the band represented in its first incarnation between 1982-1997, and what it represents today -- a musical community. Indeed, long before there was Broken Social Scene's Your Forgot it in People, there was Change of Heart's Smile, the first notable instance in which the Toronto music scene of the 90's was brought together in one room to create an indie rock masterpiece under the constraints of a limited budget and even less time. 

In many respects, In the Wreckage picks up where Smile left off. While the band would go on to produce two further excellent albums on the major label Virgin (Tummysuckle and the aforementioned Steelteeth), Smile would be the last time that founding songwriting partners Ian Blurton and Rob Taylor would record together -- until now. Historically, Taylor handled the heavy lifting with respect to lyric-writing in the band, so in many respects In the Wreckage is the first major opportunity to hear Taylor's perspective on the present state of the world (spoiler alert: it ain't pretty). Musically, this record sounds like the perfect distillation of ever band Blurton has played in since disbanding Change of Heart in '97 (Blurtonia, C'mon, Public Animal, and Future Now respectively, for those who may have been asleep the last twenty-seven years).

Kicking off with the epic "20 Acres," the band immediately reclaims the throne of '90s Canrock with their trademark quiet/loud/quiet dynamic and communal group vocals. While this song could have sit nicely anywhere on Smile, everything that follows pushes into an entirely new musical territory. "Jackpot," "Peggy's Cove" and most notably "St. Dismas" are heavier than anything that the band had previously committed to tape, while "Day One" pushes into a jazzier realm than any of the more experimental songs on Smile. The more radio-friendly material on the album ("Just Like That," "Pave") beg for immediate music video treatments to play in heavy rotation on MuchMusic, if any of those things still existed!

In the end, the ten rock-solid tracks that comprise In the Wreckage are over woefully soon, begging for repeated listens. A quarter-century is an awfully long time to wait for another follow-up -- but hey, here's hoping! Until then, we'll just have to keep mining the wreckage of seven albums, a handful of cassettes, and numerous compilation contributions to tide us over.

-Leks Maltby