Two Hours Traffic To Get Darker

03/06/09 5:32pm

by James Tennant (CHARTattack)

Two Hours Traffic are wise.

"It's easy to make a mediocre pop record."

Truer words have never been spoken.

A landslide of polycarbonate plastic discs (and let's not mention the digital equivalents) are dumped on the world on a weekly basis, yet so few of them are worthy of a listen, let alone a purchase or download. Most are simply mediocre.

If you're lucky, you find nuggets in the pile. If we're all really lucky, the truly good stuff rises to the top — like Two Hours Traffic's last disc, 2007's Little Jabs. It not only got to the top of the pile, but continued to climb long after its release.

"There has been some longevity with the record," says guitarist Alec O'Hanley. "I think it just speaks to the fact that we tried to put out — and this sounds so stupid — a real song-heavy record."

While the sound of the record was important, the songs were more so. That's an idea so simple that it's stupefying. Yet many people aren't able to write one good song, let along an entire album's worth. The Charlottetown band, though, made the kind of album that didn't flash and fizzle. It built momentum.

"I think it had some underground legs," O'Hanley says, "and certainly the Polaris nod didn't hurt."

No, being nominated for the nation's top (real) music award alongside Caribou, Kathleen Edwards and The Weakerthans certainly wouldn't hurt. So, with all things looking upward with each passing week, the band have finally found the time to approach a new record and are focussing again on the songwriting first. They've recently been writing and recording the album at the Sonic Temple in Dartmouth, N.S. with Joel Plaskett.

"We've entered the longtime producer phase, I guess," O'Hanley says of Plaskett, who also produced their previous releases, including Little Jabs.

"We did consider working with someone else, or maybe not working with anyone at all. You want to get out of your comfort zone a little bit as an artist. On the other hand, if it ain't broke, don't fuck it up."

That said, the new release will differ, if not in quality, then perhaps in tone.

"I'm pretty enthusiastic about the new tunes," says O'Hanley. "I think this new record isn't going to be quite as 'sweet' as the last effort.

"There's a bit of a darker tone, though that's lyrically more than musically. There's something uplifting about a really sad song played in a really poppy way."

Two Hours Traffic will play these shows:

March 13 Windsor, ON @ Chubby Pickle
March 14 Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern (CHARTattack's CMW showcase)
March 18 Austin, TX @ Brush Square w/Arkells, Mother Mother, Beast, Sebastien Grainger & The Mountains and Shout Out Out Out Out (SXSW Canadian Blast)
March 19 Austin, TX @ El Sol Y La Luna w/Caracol, The Wet Secrets, Sebastien Grainger, King Khan & The Shrines and Priestess (SXSW)
March 20 Austin, TX @ Emo's (SXSW)