OLP gets spiritual

By JANE STEVENSON -- Toronto Sun

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SPIRITUAL MACHINES
Our Lady Peace
(Columbia-Sony)
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This Toronto band -- one of Canada's biggest rock oufits -- went the spontaneous route on their latest album.

And the strategy appears to have paid off.

Inspired to quickly create this 10-track "concept album" after reading Ray Kurzweil's The Age Of Spiritual Machines -- When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, the collection boasts a rough-around-the-edges energy and various quirks, like having Kurzweil read excerpts from his book or carrying on a conversation with what one assumes is a female computer named Molly.

And despite the doom-and-gloom scenario of Kurzweil's vision of the future, singer-lyricist (and co-producer) Raine Maida writes positively on more than one occasion.

"I don't know but I believe in yesterday," he sings on Right Behind You.

Otherwise, the sound is a slightly different take on OLP's normally polished guitar alt-rock, the highlights being the epic-like All My Friends and The Wonderful Future, the pretty but downbeat Are You Sad? -- one of two songs featuring Pearl Jam's drummer Matt Cameron filling in for an injured Jeremy Taggart -- and the loud-quiet-loud If You Believe.

Maida also pens what could be a thoughtful mid-tempo number straight out of wife Chantal Kreviazuk's songbook with Life: "How many times have you wished you were strong, have they ever seen your heart, have they ever seen your pain," he sings.

He also gets uncomfortably honest on the rawer rocker Middle Of Yesterday: "Well, I promised you I would change, but I'm an a--hole and I'm ashamed."

Track Listing
1. Right Behind You
2. In Repair
3. Life
4. Middle Of Yesterday
5. Are You Sad
6. Made To Heal
7. Everyone's A Junkie
8. All My Friends
9. If You Believe
10. The Wonderful Future


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