The Lost Chord, "Nostalgia"

After taking some time off from writing reviews to take care of some other business, I decided to get back into the flow with the help of Toronto’s The Lost Chord and their 2013 release “Nostalgia”. It’s solid rock & roll, with tight harmonies and occasional hints of psychedelia. It’s quite possibly the best album I’ve heard in my fledgling reviewing career.

That needs to be expanded upon? Guess I better shake off the rust quickly.

When people bemoan the state of popular music today, a common refrain is how there’s still so much good music out there, but you have to look for it. After listening to “Nostalgia”, I can confidently say you don’t have to look any further. Right away, they show that they don’t belong to the “rock is dead” camp. They happen to believe that it’s alive and well, and put it out on display. And if you like looking for underlying messages in songs, “Weapons Of War” is for you. Very early in the song, among mentions of bombs, explosions in the streets, and guns at night, is the line “(t)here’s a war going on, and they won’t give up the fight.” Could “they” be record executives? Writers with an agenda, who push tripe to stay on the good side of record companies, or create controversy for the sake of page views? The inventor of Auto-Tune? How to combat these atrocities? “May the weapons of war be the words that you say and the chords that you play.” Make your own kind of music, as Mama Cass once sang. Find what speaks to you, write about it, turn it into song, create melodies, instrumentation, harmonies, a song. Simplified? Sure. But the bigger message is to not lose creative spirit. Their preferred canvas is music. “When we sing together, then we can change the world.”

It only takes one note to tell you what you’re in for on this album. Guitar, bass, and drums all introduce themselves on the very first downbeat of the very first track, “Lambspring”, and you’re strapped in for an uptempo 6/8-time ride. Alex Berry brings his unique vocal sound into the mix only a few seconds later, and then you’re hit with the first wave of harmonies, which add a level of warmth that persists through the entire album. The track ends with a guitar solo unlike anything I’ve heard. Not so much the notes, but how it sounds like it was backward-masked, and then re-reversed. In reality, it may just be the tone of the guitar, but that it even hints at an old psychedelic trick speaks volumes about their influences, preferences, and style.

The Lost Chord may be a relative newcomer, as bands go, but they seem to have a lot of things figured out on “Nostalgia”. The music is real and original, and they didn’t overdo anything. This is about as good as music gets. And with any luck, there are a lot of years and albums still to come for the band. That means it would be a long time before their fans look back on this album as… well… nostalgia.

Final rating: 4.5 out of 5

Download “Nostalgia” from iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/nostalgia/id753942319

Download “Nostalgia” from Bandcamp: http://thelostchord.bandcamp.com/

The Lost Chord’s website: http://www.thelostchord.ca/home