...except we do.
Nine-and-a-half years or so later, The Hidden Cameras are finally ready to unleash "No Gay Goth Scene" - now shortened in title to "Gay Goth Scene" - upon the world.
A live favorite for the band and fans since the tour for 'The Smell of Our Own' - if not before - this one has somehow managed to avoid being captured for record for nearly a decade. Today - the 10th anniversary of the release of 'The Smell of Our Own' in the US if you're keeping track at home - the band posted this on their various social media pages:
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WE DON’T WANT NO GAY GOTH SCENE IN THIS HOUSE
The first glimpse of the new record is in sight. “Gay Goth Scene” - already known to live audiences – will be previewed first as a short film. Toronto fans will get the chance to preview the new single from the forthcoming album Age (set for release in the fall of 2013) this month at Inside Out LGBT Film Festival. The video was directed by Kai Stänicke and shot in Berlin last winter. More information coming soon.
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2013 has already continually delivered the goods musically, but this one might take the cake...perhaps even above 'LSXX'.
Well, maybe not.
...but maybe. They're at least tied.
I suppose I shouldn't be too terribly surprised but the new Hidden Cameras album is not very good.
It's not for lack of trying - it's more that it is trying too hard to be to many things at different times in it's running length...and failing at pretty much all of them.
Joel has been saying recently that he's making a conscious effort to move away from the mega-chamber-pop that defined the first two records. That was hinted at at points on 2006's 'Awoo' - see "Follow These Eyes" for an example - but it is pretty overbearing here. Therefore, the album starts out with 2 minutes of formless drone before "Ratify The New" really gets started...and then goes absolutely nowhere over the course of six-and-a-half minutes.
Things pick up a bit for current single "In the NA" - on album we discover that the only thing extended about the version on the single was the two-minute intro of heavy breathing...lucky us. However even in its shortened version, the song never really takes off - a problem that 'Awoo' ran into frequently as well. It wants to be a big, joyous pop tune but it's just not.
Those two issues pop up over and over on the album. "He Falls To Me" sounds like it is trying very, very hard to retroactively fit in on 'The Smell of Our Own' - I swear that song title sounds familiar so perhaps it is a hold over from that period? - but ends up sound like, well, it is trying to hard.
In the second half of the album we run into another issue. A good chunk of the songs that make up "side b" - if you will - sound like the cast album to The Hidden Cameras - The Musical!. Obviously the band has always had a theatrical side to them - you've seen the live shows, right? - but the songs never suffered for it. Here, they do. Maybe it's my deep-seeded dislike of all things Broadway but it is incredibly off-putting and ruins any chance the album might have of winning me over. We won't even talk about the nonsense that is "Underage" - 80's dance beats and completely ridiculous lyrics that come off sounding totally pervy in an uncomfortably creepy way.
It's completely disheartening for a couple of reasons. First: I love love love this band in ways that are impossible to put into words and it always sucks when your favorites fall. [See also: Super Furry Animals' 'Dark Days/Light Years'.] Second: I honestly didn't think we'd get a fourth Hidden Cameras album proper after all of the stories that had been swirling around the band for the past few years so it's disappointing that what should have been an unexpectedly pleasant surprise is quite the opposite. Third: they still have it in them and there's proof. Hidden away on the "In the NA" EP released a few months ago was a little track called "Mind, Matter and Waste" that was truly a stone cold Hidden Cameras classic. Fourth: there are AMAZING songs hiding in the vaults that, for whatever reason, Joel won't commit to record. Performed during the period between 'The Smell of Our Own' and 'Mississauga Goddam' were two gems called "No Gay Goth Scene" and "Men: Vous Etes Les Memes". Both are totally brilliant - I'd even go as far as to say "No Gay Goth Scene" is my second favorite Hidden Cameras song, behind "Ban Marriage" of course - and both continually get left off of tracklisting after tracklisting whenever a new release comes out. What gives?Boo.
According to the Hidden Cameras myspace their fourth album, entitled 'Origin:Orphan', is scheduled for release on September 22nd. That's the artwork over there. The first taste we have of it is a song called "Walk On" which is available for free from the Amazon digital store. It is a different sound for them - quite heavy and dark - though is still unmistakably the Hidden Cameras.
Unsurprisingly, "No Gay Goth Scene" did not make the tracklist for the album, but these songs did according to the Arts & Crafts website:
Ratify The New
In the NA
He Falls To Me
Colour Of A Man
Do I Belong
Walk On
Kingdom Come
Origin:Orphan
Underage
The Little Bit
Silence Can Be A Headline
I am cautiously optimistic about this one.
