[FourPistols]

Someone said IBE is the band’s throwback album and that sounds about right. Maybe it resembles Up To Here a bit, which is prob my fave Hip album. I mentioned some of the tracks I really dig here recently. Ballsy rockers like You’re Everywhere, Heaven is a Better Place Today, Heart of the Melt, Vaccination Scar, Copenhagen, etc. The slower tracks are great too - Nee Orleans, Family and Josephine. It’s a stellar effort song for song.

I think some fans might have missed this album. If Phantom Power was the last high water mark and Music@Work a bit of a muddled letdown, I think many people didn’t catch this album. The more casual Hip fan if you will. In Violet Light was an improvement but it didn’t have any mega hits on it. So that lapsed fan maybe stayed away, possibly missing this raucous return to form at an angry time in our world (thanks, Dubya).

I like many things about World Container, We Are The Same and Man Machine Poem, but I’d easily argue this was the Hip’s last terrific album.