Right from the start, Kensington Heights asks questions of the listener.
‘Hard Feelings’ seems disjointed and overly verbose and continues to offer that impression until three or four days later when it dawns that you’ve spent the last hour singing “I’ve got hard hard hard feelings” over and over again. Suffice to say, it’s a grower. The same can’t be said of ‘Trans Canada’ or ‘Our Age’. Both hit like a juggernaut and the latter in particular works its snaking guitar lines and pummelling drumbeat together to stunning effect. The album has a definite sense of time and place but not so much so that it alienates the non-Canadians. Bryan Webb’s strained and battered voice is that of the classic rock n’ roll frontman and is the perfect fit for music that stomps from classic rock riffs to post-punk noise in the space of a single song.
On the beautiful ‘I Will Not Sing A Hateful Song’, he showcases how a technically limited voice can still have tremendous range.