This came out in 2004 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
I will say this for The Tragically Hip: They’re punctual.
For most of the past decade, you could almost set your watch by their CD releases — if it’s June in an even-numbered year, it’s time for another batch of artfully idiosyncratic CanRock from frontman Gordon Downie and his long-serving bandmates.
So no, I wasn’t exactly surprised when the band’s ninth studio disc, In Between Evolution, plopped promptly onto my desk last week. Nor, more importantly, was I shocked after popping said disc into the player. True to its title, In Between Evolution is, for better or worse, a typically solid and rockin’ Tragically Hip record — a little bit heavier and more energetic than 2002’s In Violet Light, but still more refined and cerebral than their earlier work.
Which is to say: If you dig their gritty bar-band grooves, jangly crunching riffs, swirly melodies — not to mention Downie’s throaty vocals and enigmatic word paintings (“When I write the tiger hanging on by its eyebrows”) — you’ll find plenty to love in cuts like The Heart Of The Melt, Vaccination Scar and the Stonesy Are We Family. If you don’t, you’ll probably see this as the latest clock-punching effort from a predictable band. Either way, you can almost certainly count on a followup in precisely 24 months.
