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Our silent sister to the north has traded her hockey skates for an amplifier, and she's cranking the volume to 11. Not since the reign of the Band have the words "Canadian" and "rock" been paired up outside geological circles, but now the Barenaked Ladies are changing all that -- and the Crash Test Dummies are coming along for the ride. |
Less than two weeks after Stunt shocked the music world with a Top 5 debut, the Barenaked Ladies' neighbors in the north finished laying down tracks for what they hope will be yet another Canadian breakthrough. The Crash Test Dummies, who won commercial favor in 1993 with the quirky single "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm," recently recorded the last string of touch-ups for their fourth studio album, tentatively titled Faster Faster.
Named for the caffeine-fueled, unceasing pace of modern life, Faster Faster was recorded in Los Angeles, and remains in post-production as the proud parents choose appropriate album art and mold the album to absolute perfection. The disc is expected to hit the street in early 1999, though Arista Records has not even heard the new music yet, according to the Dummies' manager, Jeff Rogers.
Making a clean break from their 1996 flop, A Worm's Life, the band tweaked its sound for this disc, throwing the microphone in front of keyboardist Ellen Reid and recruiting producer Greg Wells to contribute his songwriting prowess. A young veteran of the music industry, Wells has brainstormed with k.d. Lang and Liz Phair, among others. He met up with Dummies' frontman Brad Roberts in France at a creative camp sponsored by famed producer Miles Copeland, and hit it off at first lyric.
"They got together, wrote some songs, demoed them -- and they all turned out great," Rogers told JAMTV on Friday. "This is the best album the band has ever made."
Wells' influence stretched deep into the music, as he inspired Roberts to lift his deep, deep baritone up out of the gutter. According to Rogers, the enigmatic singer uses the full range of his voice on Faster Faster -- an unprecedented move to say the least. Though this shift may stun longtime fans of the quintet, Rogers said it came as an even greater surprise to the deep-throated singer himself.
"When Brad was a kid he didn't think he could sing right because he would listen to Kiss records and try to sing like Paul Stanley, and his deep voice wouldn't reach that high," he said. "I imagine he could always really do it, he just didn't think so."
The unconventional Dummies' album, which will feature Reid singing lead vocals on at least three songs, makes its live debut this September in Puerto Allegra, Brazil and Buenos Aires, Argentina. The group will escape the confines of their familiar recording studio to warm up nimble fingers and test out new material on a crowd that has never before seen them play live. Before and after the two intimate concerts, a camera crew will hound the Dummies, collecting uncensored footage for an upcoming Canadian television special.
"Recording an album is such a fragmented process, I thought it would be cool to get together as a band, a crew and a management team," Rogers said. "It'll be a great excuse for everyone to get together and hang."
Though A Worm's Life debuted just two years ago, the Crash Test Dummies have been absent from American pop culture for nearly five years. That long break apparently doesn't trouble the band, which is resting on the laurels of its latest accomplishment and hoping that Canadian luck rubs off.
"We may need to introduce people back to the band because
they've been gone for awhile," Rogers said. "But I think this will
be their most successful record." (Anni Layne)