[tigerthelion]

After a little more time to absorb the new record, I've come to these selfish thoughts:


--I think I prefer the song "WC" to be played like it was on THE HOUR. I like the stripped down version better.
--The vocal mix on the album is a little annoying to me. Gord's vocal performance is superb but the mixing or whatever kind of bugs me at certain times. It's like a piercing sound at times that irritates me like nails on a chalkboard. An example is near the end of "Yer Not the Ocean" when Gord sings "up to my chin" and the 'ch' sound in chin is just too harsh on the ears.
--I hope The Hip NEVER work with Bob Rock again. I know what they sound like with him. They've been there, done that. I don't want to hear a Bob Rock influenced record from them again. Time to move on.
--I think it is a bad omen if the Hip really needed Bob Rock as much as they are saying. Hopefully they should be able to come up with musical ideas on their own and not lean so much on the producer. I mean, they self produced TATH and it sounded great.
--I still like WC but am agreeing with KWT more and more over time(to a certain extent). I think the songs are terrific but a few of them are marred by being too bombastic and overblown.
--I find the acoustic guitar annoying on the album, especially on "In View".It's too loud. The acoustic guitar, if I had a preference, should be buried in the mix a little more.

Rob answered my question in the chat so all's good!

Well, i can see WHERE your opinion comes from and I respect it...but...one of the great things about the HIP is the variety of music, sounds and more importantly FEEL you get from them. Everyone here is a hard core fan yet we all have different 'favs' and we all different things on each CD. Maybe this CD will grow on you in time. For others it is instant classic. Henhouse took me over a year to 'get' so to speak. IVL took a long time as well and is currently my favorite CD. At this point in their career, you are not really going to get a raw sound anymore, it has been refined Bob Rock or not. Personally i love the sound of the CD - but to each his own.

Cool, man. Truth be told, I was one of the people on here who were praising the album to the highest when I first heard it. I was floored by it. After two weeks or so of listening, I still very much like the album and appreciate the direction the band is heading. This album struck me more than any other Hip album. However, I started listening more and more and thinking about it more and more. Maybe I am just trying too hard to find something wrong with the new album or whatever, but it's kind of wearing me out. I usually like Hip albums MORE as time passes. I'm not sure this will be the case with WC. I put in IBE the other day after not listening to it for a while and it struck me that I enjoy that album today more than ever.

Don't get me wrong, WC is still a very solid effort and I like some of the ideas Mr Rock presumably gave the boys. It should sound great live. "The Kids Don't Get It" is right up there for me as a classic Hip gem.