Hidden Cameras
Indie Rock / Folk
A sea of power lines, vacant lots and townhouse complexes: That was the landscape of Mississauga, Ontario in the ‘80s when Hidden Cameras’ songwriter Joel Gibb was growing up. Not much has changed except now there’s nary a gap between the malls, schools and churches that give the Toronto suburb its personality. Mississauga Goddam, indeed.
But sometimes beauty springs from ugliness, creativity from the numbing effect of a pre-fab society.
And so we present The Hidden Cameras’ second studio album, Mississauga Goddam, a glorious record that steps up to and exceeds the challenge set by the Cameras’ debut, The Smell Of Our Own. Mississauga Goddam is lush with strings, tambourines and Gibbs’ lyrics, a blend of sacred and profane that somehow manage to both normalize the unusual and celebrate the mundane.
Fans will be pleased to know that live favourite “I Believe In The Good Of Life” has been treated beautifully in the studio and is now snugly nestled between “That’s When The Ceremony Starts” and “In The Union Of Wine.” It’s a dazzling trio of song, but that’s no surprise considering that Mississauga, Goddam is an album comprised almost entirely of songs that should be singles, yet fit perfectly together as an album.
The first single is an exuberant number called “Fear Is On” that kicks off with a guitar riff so catchy that you’ll be humming it for days. The song’s video was directed by Gibb and choreographed by Toronto’s Christopher House, with whom The Hidden Cameras worked in January 2004 on a dance/music collaboration called You Are The Same.
That’s the thing about The Hidden Cameras. They transcend cliché as they forge a path around what’s expected. They’re an independent band from Toronto, but found their first label home on England’s Rough Trade – and were the first Canadian band to do so. They embrace homoerotic imagery – and have straight rock ‘n’ roll fans singing along at the top of their lungs. They build songs around acoustic guitar, violin and cello – and have people dancing in the aisles.
And, somehow, they took Mississauga’s earth-toned coldness and transformed it into something rich, warm and inspiring. Goddam.
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