Leaning left? Looking for the band to soundtrack your protest march/pipeline blockade/yoga class? Perhaps you're a Green Party candidate in need of a theme song? Here's your band. Actually, you don't have to be a full-time activist to love Communism. Anybody with a love of brilliant, fun guitar rock, happy harmonies and crazy chord changes will want to burn their draft cards, or whatever we do in Canada these days, and dance like crazy to this New Deal.
Communism is the project of beloved drummer/producer Don Kerr (Ron Sexsmith/Rheostatics), teamed up with fun-loving fellow travelers Kevin Lacroix (bass) and Paul Linklater (guitar), currently tearing up certain southern Ontario clubs and public broadcasting airwaves. Kerr's harmony/beauty credentials were firmly established in 2005 when he and Sexsmith did the duo album Destination Unknown, northern Everly Brothers. Here, with his own pen, Kerr creates an entire sub-genre of his own, basically a bunch of songs that say what all the sane people have been thinking for a long time: Be nice, for God's sake! Be better to each other, the planet, stop being so greedy, and come on, quit killing all the bees.
Kerr and co. use the vocals as the lead instrument, and the rest of the playing is crafty and quick, bobbing and weaving, with huge HPM numbers (hooks per minute, I invented that, thanks). There's so much great power pop and smarty-pants rock going on, the message goes down smoothly, mixed with so many spoonfuls of sugar.
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