The Lake Effect, Expect Delays EP

By Kai Shuart

The four tracks on The Lake Effect‘s debut EP, Expect Delays, tell of a band that seems too chilled out for its own good. While this does make for some lovely, atmospheric music, such as the always-wonderful combination of warm keyboards and acoustic guitars found throughout Expect Delays, the muted atmosphere made it difficult for me to attach myself to the emotions being conveyed in the lyrics.

That’s a shame, because the lyrics are lovely and tell of love and loss in human relationships, despite the clunky rhyme in the song “Hothouse” where lead singer Phil Hogarth sings “The White House/the light house” during the refrain. In “Fallen from the Sky,” Hogarth sings of a partner that he can’t stay away from despite the fact that he can feel said partner falling away. A universal emotion, to be sure, but the laid-back vocals make the protagonist sound a bit indifferent to the whole thing.

The indifferent manner in which the vocals come across is a real shame, because according to my research into this band, the individual members were at the forefront of the Canadian punk and indie movement of the late seventies and early eighties, and with this release, they were looking to go more into indie territory.

To my mind, apathy is kind of the antithesis of what those two genres of music are about. Even in the Ramones’ “I Don’t Care,” through Joey’s vocals and the music, you got the sense that the protagonist really did. And when Ani DiFranco sings “Fuck you” in the song “Untouchable Face,” her protagonist is not telling someone to leave because she doesn’t care, she’s telling someone, “I love you so much and how dare you not love me back”.

All this is not to say that I didn’t enjoy the music. As I said, the lyrics were fine and the music absolutely lovely. I just wish the songs combined the passion of their punk past with the more mature sound of their indie future.

Expect Delays was released on March 13.