Barenaked Ladies album review

Barenaked Ladies
All in Good Time
(Raisin/EMI)
B+

During the recent Winter Olympics, popular Canadian musicians were represented at various points during the televised opening and closing ceremonies. One glaring omission? Barenaked Ladies (maybe the name didn’t pass muster with old fogeys at the IOC).

The quirky Toronto natives were one of the Great White North’s most successful musical exports in the 1990s and early 2000s. Their well-crafted, smart pop/rock songs stood apart from the pack. The departure of founding member and co-singer/songwriter/guitarist Steven Page last year brought new challenges.

Front man Ed Robertson ably handles the creative load and brings the brawny rock strains more often on solid eleventh studio album All in Good Time. It was produced by Michael Phillip Wojewoda, who also helmed debut disc Gordon in 1992.

Bassist Jim Creeggan and multi-instrumentalist Kevin Hearn help pick up the slack, contributing five tracks between them. Creeggan’s compositions fare best, especially the string quartet sweetened “On the Lookout” and sleek “I Saw It,” about childhood bullying.

Highlights include dramatic slow burn ballad “You Run Away” (one of Robertson’s finest vocal deliveries to date), the breezy “Summertime,” oddly humorous polka “Four Seconds” (Robertson hasn’t lost his knack for wry wordplay since the big hit “One Week”), “Every Subway Car” (he name checks Sly Stallone and sings about a love struck tagger), “Golden Boy” (where the ebullient pop recalls the BnL > sound of yore) and countrified accents on “The Love We’re In” work surprisingly well.