So here we are poised at the brink of the new millennium, and music issuffering. Specifically, rock & roll is limping along, all tangled up in self-awareness and sub-genre nonsense waiting for the next surprise to take thelead and save us all. Enter Sloan, fresh out of the supposed bleakness ofCanada and bearing the welcome surprise-to-end-all-welcome-surprises: big badSeventies *rawk.*

Much as Sloan's last release, One Chord to Another, drew its life bloodfrom the Sixties, the four-headed supergroup's new album, Navy Blues,is a trip through the dark past of Seventies references. Beginning with anirreverent cough, it offers up tastes of Rubber Soul-era Beatles, ThinLizzy, Todd Rundgren's Utopia and fellow Canucks April Wine. But unlike, say,Lenny Kravitz, when Sloan goes retro, they do so to spice their tracks, notshamelessly pass them off as their own. And they have a ball at it.

"Some people say it's a hilarious record," says bassist/vocalist Chris Murphy,"but I think it's cool. You risk walking the line with hard rock references,but I think even the first time around those things were done with humor. Idon't think AC/DC was ever as humorless as, say, the Wallflowers. I think theywere laughing the whole time. We like to have a good time, but we're reallyserious about making good records."

Indeed, while having four songwriters certainly helps Sloan fill up recordswith good material, it's the band's lighthearted approach to being seriouslycreative that has defined their impressive output.

"We were in hysterics the whole time," continues Murphy, looking back on theirtimes in the studio. "The hardest I giggled though was recording horns for'Everything You've Done Wrong' on One Chord to Another. I couldn'tbelieve we were doing it. I thought that was daring or something. Short ofmaking a dance record or something, I don't know how we would trick ourselvesnow. The one we're making a video for now, 'She Says What She Means,' is kindof funky. The band Jay and I were in before Sloan had lots of sort ofregrettable funkiness to it. I want to remember it as being the Minutemen, notthe Chili Peppers, if you know what I mean. He was fatter than D. Boon at thetime too."

You have to learn from the past if you are to overcome it, and this is a bandbent on saving pop music. Long-time fans, maniacs that they are, shouldn'tworry that Navy Blues is derivative of anything else. "It's not like anoutrageous rock record," laughs guitarist Jay Ferguson. "I think thoseinfluences showed through more in [guitarist] Patrick [Pentland]'s songs like'Money City Maniacs' and 'Iggy & Angus' and Chris' song 'She Says What SheMeans.' It's that side showing through this time. We also knew we'd be playingsome festivals, and in addition to being cool recordings, we knew they wouldbe fun to play. They're a little more obvious. I think Patrick was consideringthat when he was writing."

Despite releasing back-to-back-to-back gold albums and inspiring near-Beatlemania craziness at home-and amongst revered songsmiths from PaulWesterberg to Lou Barlow to Steve Malkmus-Sloan remain humble. LaughsMurphy, "I'm not so stupid to think it's because we're genius musicians, butbecause we take time with people ...."

No one would accuse this band of rushing things south-of-the-border (it's worth noting, however, that their previous assault on the U.S. was cut short when their label folded), but, then again, it's no small order putting Canada at the top of the taste-making charts (just ask the Tragically Hip, although Bryan Adams, Alanis and Celine Dion might have a different take on things).But working at the top of their game-and through their own Murderecordslabel-Sloan appear to be up to the task.

SCOTT WILSON