IN REVIEW: Joel Plaskett - "The Park Avenue Sobriety Test"

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If the new Joel Plaskett record (his eighth not counting his '90s output with Thrush Hermit but including those credited to Plaskett & The Emergency) feels a bit more cohesive than you're used to, that makes sense. After an experiment in time management for previous LP Scrappy Happiness (comprised of ten songs recorded and released digitally over a succession of ten weeks in 2012), the triplet-obsessed Three (three CDs containing three sets of three songs each) back in 2009, and the nostalgia trip of Ashtray Rock (though all songs were recorded during the same sessions, some songs dated back to the Thrush Hermit days), The Park Avenue Sobriety Test is, in a way, Plaskett's first conventional album in about a decade. 

Accordingly, it has more flow and consistency of narrative; written squarely from a current point of view, the album deals predominantly with the scary proposition of approaching middle age (Plaskett turns 40 next month). While it does acknowledge a few regrets and missed chances, it also stresses the importance of living in the moment; there's just as much blue sky as black clouds. Perhaps the most telling example of Plaskett's mindset regarding growing older is found on penultimate track Broken Heart Songs, where he seemingly laments, "what you call country music sounds more like Bon Jovi" before quickly admitting "it used to piss me off, now it kind of turns me on". 

It's also a very much an album of its environment; no song will hit home for more Maritimers than the downtrodden-but-hopeful anthem Broke while Hard Times could pass for a Plaskett original despite being written by Stephen Foster in Pennsylvania 170 years ago. It's this shrewd use of the past on The P.A.S.T. that helps Plaskett present an album that's both fresh and familiar.

March 17, 2015 • Pheromone
Highlights On a Dime • Credits Roll • Broke

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