P:ano - The Den CD

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"Lush is a word that music critics use entirely too often, but one would be hard-pressed to find a more accurate adjective to describe the latest p:ano album. To flesh out the uniformly slow, sad songs on The Den, the Vancouver four-piece recruited 18 guest musicians. Among that number are some of the city's finest players, including cellist Peggy Lee, singer Veda Hille, and multi-instrumentalist Stefan Udell (of the Beans). As a result, tracks such as 'L.D.' and 'The Worst Thing You Could Ever Do' are laden with strings, brass, and choirlike backing vocals. In the wrong hands, this could be a recipe for an overwrought mess, but the arrangements here are surprisingly uncluttered, leaving plenty of space for the songs' simple melodies. Singer Nick Krgovich mutters these in such an offhand way that you have to listen closely to realize that he's saying things like, 'How nice it would be for something tragic to happen.'

If The Den barely resembles the sound that p:ano achieves live as a quartet, that's beside the point. As an exercise in studio-based orch-pop, the album is a rich, if thoroughly melancholic, success." -John Lucas, STRAIGHT