Review: Sheer Agony – Masterpiece

Sheer Agony
Masterpiece

Couple Skate Records
Street: 10.30
Sheer Agony = The Stone Roses + Can + Love

There is a lot that can be said about this psychedelic record: it doesn’t sound like it was produced in Canada, it doesn’t sound of a particular era and it doesn’t sound much like a psychedelic record. Listening through it I pick up a lot of ’80s pop overtones—something in between The Stone Roses and Devo. But there are also a lot of derivations and experimentation that definitely place it among progressive rock and concept albums. “Debonaires” is an abstract track that reminisces in the early ’60s pop of Love and Herman’s Hermits. “Careers” points to those garage bands that helped move progressive rock to what it was by 1967. But then in tracks like “I Have a Dream” you can’t help but think of ’80s new wave pop tracks like “Melt with You” or “Come On Eileen.” Masterpiece provides a pallet of ’80s new wave and ’60s psychedelia. –Austin Doty