A bar rebuilt into a studio, one might say. Like in the movies. It’s the chorus choruses, spontaneous on purpose, if you’ll give me the expression, that do that. The more Joseph Edgar sings alone, the more everyone sings alone with him. Solidarity loneliness. “And if I could / I would take your sorrows / I would cry them for you”, he sings without chorus in Year after year (So Far Away) : the orchestration must gradually fill the space for it to be bearable. Phew! Everyone comes back to help him hold on in Hang On (Stay here). It’s all heavy. In Heavy Side Of Love, the verses in French and English seem to answer each other, old couple from New Brunswick. The music of Edgar and Ben Bouchard is solid, giving great blows to ward off fate. “I take a break and I breathe / I prepare myself for the worst,” he sings, we intone. At the end, the singer only has his guitar left. Still happy that we can play this eighth album again.
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