Bahamas - the Pink Strat guitar

Bahamas is essentially a solo project of Afie Jurvanen from Toronto, who has backed up an impressive list of Canadian musicians including Hayden, Feist and the Stills with his guitar and piano. On the album, Pink Strat, there are appearances by friends including Leslie Feist, members of Zeus and the Great Lake Swimmers, while Robbie Lackritz was also intricately linked with the recording process (and presumably was the drummer for the Rolling Tundra Revue). Speaking of that show, I remember enjoying the set well enough despite never hearing any Bahamas beforehand, but definitely not being blown away. The album leaves me with a similar sentiment. In fact, regarding the show I slotted it in as "unoffensive, though also unenthralling, rock music" which I would say is also a fairly accurate description of the album, though I would now be hesitant to label it rock music, but rather find folk more accurate (the live show was mostly electric guitar, while the album is primarily acoustic).

Starting the whole thing off is Lonely Love which is a catchy and (relatively) upbeat song.. opening with simply vocals over an acoustic guitar, before some electric guitar comes in partway through. The following song sings "Thanking the Lord for blessing you with Hockey Teeth" which is an amusing, and very Canadian sentiment written over a short, downbeat guitar ditty. Southern Drawl does open with a sourthern feel, while For Good Reason is a stripped-down tune featuring some simple guitar picking and bare drumming.. it gets kind of boring and leads into You're Bored, I'm Old. Though it is slightly depressing on the lyrical side, the music is more perky than many songs in the midst of this album. Same goes for Sunshine Blues - a meeting of opposites that leans more towards the sunshine in a short, simply catchy and nice way. The rhymes in Already Yours work well over the steady beat. The next tune is filled out with piano, but has repeated and depressing lyrics - What's Worse? Before you know it, the good times have already rolled by in 95 seconds on Let the Good Times Roll which continues the lyrical theme of looking for (and not finding) love. On Try, Tried, Trying there is a great morphing chorus, with a tweak of the lyrics each time over sparse electric guitar. Til The Morning is sleepy but takes you to the final song.

The album takes on a simple format, and rather stripped down sound to accompany the looking-for-love-lyrics (who was it that said "99% of songs are love songs, and 99% of love songs are crap?"). Well this album definitely isn't crap, and is book-ended by some excellent cuts. As mentioned before, Lonely Love starts Pink Strat in style, but previously skipped is the great closing track Whole, Wide World. A new twist on the old parent-tells-child-about-love story, Afie speaks on the topic of searching for "the one" in a catchy manner that includes finger snap percussion. There's something to be said for an outstanding closing track, as it encourages one to play the album once more. Too bad there aren't more repeatable gems on this one.