Typically, the Sadies have treated vocals like taking out the trash, something you do only because you have to. For getting them to take some care with their singing, producer Gary Louris (the Jayhawks) deserves a lot of love. The Sadies still make music that sounds like the Byrds at their garage-iest, full of ringing, atmospheric guitars, which means they still specialize in creating moods (they’re particularly good at “wistful” and “haunted”), but with more defined melodies, it’s easier to remember what they’re wistful about or haunted by.

 

Perhaps the most fascinating element of New Seasons is the relationship between their circa late-1960s country rock and the sense of place. Nature is central to Travis and Dallas Good’s imagery pool just as it was for countless hippies before them. But, that comes off as slightly ironic for the Torontonians, who live in a city almost as big and as paved as NYC. The country might be the garden they say they have to return to, but their guitars and melodies don’t sound convinced. They sound much happier where they are, in a place where fuzztone and distortion are valued as much as picking prowess, and as is almost the case, I go with the guitars.