In 2005 Mark Hamilton (wearing the hat in the photo above) returned home to Calgary from Scotland with a broken heart and a head full of inspiration that he poured into his band Woodpigeon. He is quoted as saying that Woodpigeon’s latest album, Treasury Library Canada, the followup to the 2008 debut Songbook, helped him figure out particularly what the word home truly means to him.

So if you’ve ever left someone or had someone leave you, or if you have ever left a place and wished you were back there, or you were the one who stayed and the one you loved went away, the lyrics on this album will speak volumes to you. And even if somehow you don’t fit any of those categories, this is an album to love for its sheer beauty. I played “I Live a Lot of Places” for He Might Be Giant (my grandson) when he stayed with me last week, and he loved it.

I am not exaggerating when I say that Woodpigeon is Canada’s answer to the Decemberists, Iron and Wine, Belle and Sebastian, and Sufjan Stevens, all rolled into one. Just go their MySpace site and listen to the unreleased live track “…and as the ship went down.” It has all the drama and vision of “The Mariner’s Tale” (Decemberists). Hamilton follows the softer vocal style of Stevens and Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch rather than Colin Meloy’s affected swagger. Any album that had two or three songs of the caliber that all of these are would have people raving about it, but here the whole thing is good: fourteen songs that completely fulfill their place in the whole.

You don’t have to take my word for it; Treasury Library Canada is in the running against other excellent albums from Canadian artists for the annual Polaris Music Prize. Its companion CD,the bonus 10-track CD Houndstooth Europa is nearly as good, with the tender “Oberkampf” a standout. I feel sure this album is going to be among my top picks for 2009.

Hamilton doesn’t make all these pretty sounds by himself. Woodpigeon is a bunch of people who sing and play the string and brass instruments that fill out each track to perfection. The arrangements are intricate without ever sounding overdone. I love the melancholy violins, like a Russian folk melody, that begin “I Live a Lot of Places” before Hamilton comes in with the lyrics and jaunty tune. But the violins come back later, and they are joined by voice after voice until the whole thing swells to an aching peak that nearly brings tears to your eyes.

Woodpigeon - I Live a Lot of Places
from Treasury Library Canada (2009)

MySpace | Website | Label: Boompa Records
Buy at Amazon, iTunes, and eMusic

Show Schedule:
Woodpigeon are on a summer tour of the U.K. and Europe and are also scheduled to appear at CMJ in New York City in October.

Filed under: album review, video, Woodpigeon

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