Raising the Fawn
Sleight of Hand (Sonic Unyon)
By Emily Becker
Published: July 28th, 2007 | 12:55pm
Like an indie-rock franchise in reverse, Broken Social Scene members are everywhere. Is it possible that even the BSS participants can’t keep their own family tree straight? If Raising the Fawn’s John Crossingham knows, he’s not telling. He’s too busy living up to his band’s self-imposed constraints, recording their latest release, Sleight of Hand, in just over a week. After listening to Sleight of Hand, it’s obvious why Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning recruited him. Raising the Fawn was never a side project for Crossingham. His involvement with the band predates that with Broken Social Scene by four years. Nor is it a Crossingham solo project, though he and bassist Scott Remila are the only founding members who remain with the group. Drummer Dylan Green joined the band after Julie Booth and Jon Drew departed.
Sleight of Hand, which plays like a tighter version of The Maginot Line (2006), is the band’s fifth release since 2001. While the album’s title hints at obfuscation, the music is crisp and clear. The band chose to not waste a minute of its week in the studio. “You Are the Enemy” provides the evidence. In 2:09 Crossingham and company deliver a neatly packaged verse-chorus-verse rock song unlike any they have written to date.
As on The Maginot Line, Sleight of Hand never stays in one place for too long. To contrast the expansive “ROMA/AMOR” with the naked electro pulse and falsetto of “focusfocusfocus” is to experience the full range of sounds Raising the Fawn keep at their disposal. The band changes course, offering stylistic variation not only among the songs, but within the tracks as well. “Cypress Fields” alternates a heavily percussive chorus before swerving into an XTC-like quirky pop song for the verse. A memorable coda, “Lion in Winter,” captures the tone of the entire album played on a miniature scale. The song begins as a melodic ballad, which dissolves into atmospheric harmonies that die out almost entirely, only to be reborn as an up-tempo anthem, all in less than nine minutes.
Issue #35
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