[direwolf74]

The thing with the Hip is that I don't think they've ever had any preconceived ideas about what direction they should go in for a new album, so I doubt we'll ever get a complete back-to-basics album or a complete acoustic album from them. I remember an interview with Gord once where he said, and I'm paraphrasing here: "we've never gone into a new album saying this is gonna be our country record, or this will be our punk record, etc..." The final result seems to be as much a surprise for the band as it does for the fans. Pearl Jam was recently interviewed about this exact topic, and they mentioned that they can't figure out how certain bands can go into a new record saying "this is the direction we're going to go in", because you never know how it's actually going to turn out in the end, especially when you have 5 guys with different opinions on the material.

That being said, the Headstones just finished recording an all-acoustic record where they've reworked some of their older songs (along with a couple of new songs I'm told). But I guess that would be considered a concept album, which is a totally different thing.