The Paint Movement

Floating into your audio periphery like leaves on a fall breeze, "Cat's Meow" shyly and with great politeness introduces the beginning of an album that's all about brass, light jazz and a civilised meshing of styles. Mississauga, ON's the Paint Movement don't stay quiet for too long though, with second song "Faults" building to a vocally raucous but otherwise well-behaved indie campfire sing-along, a vibe that's maintained throughout the album, to its detriment. I hate to drop the inevitable Broken Social Scene clanger but it's evident that they, along with every other band to come out of Toronto in the last ten years, have been heavily influenced by the group. But despite having only four members, they layer vocals and employ enough horns you'd swear there were three-times as many. However, it becomes somewhat oppressive after a while, making me believe that thinning out some songs would make the busy ones more significant, while committing to one sound would make the album far less forgettable.