The Gertrudes – Hard Water

Ian Kaufman

Features Editor

Probably the best measure of an album’s worth is whether it wilts or grows on us with repeated listens. Thanks to a diverse heap of musicians and instruments, the Gertrudes’ Hard Water is the epitome of that second kind of album: rich and textured enough to reveal something new every time. Although it consists of only six songs, the album is packed with enough sounds and ideas to feel satisfying, even if it will probably leave you wanting more.

The lyrics and music follow some neat parallels: while Greg Tilson sings ‘River’, layered harmonies and plucked banjo trickle in and flow alongside. As Annie Clifford laments that “you and I take up too much room,” the group’s dozen-or-so members (wielding everything from violins and trombones, to ukuleles and theremins) somehow manage to not step on each others’ toes.

Those who have seen the Gertrudes in concert know that, for all its charm, Hard Water leaves wide swathes of the group’s sonic landscape unexplored. The rock-based explosiveness of their shows is mostly left aside in favour of hushed, reverent folk. It comes as no surprise that parts of the album were recorded in a church.

That’s not to say the Gertrudes can’t get their rocks off when they so choose – ‘Seymour’ and ‘Advancement of the Human Age’ prove they’re more than capable of rousing, bawdy choruses and bombastic crescendos - but the boisterous moments are few and far between.

That might be for the best, this time at least. It’s with the two final songs, both achingly restrained, that the album really shines. Hard Water may be the world’s first agro-feminist ballad, but it’s far from being a gimmick. Its choral arrangement is made all the more impressive by the fact that it was recorded live (with so many members, who needs overdubs?). ‘A New Sound,’ meanwhile, tortuously builds up to a wrenching climax that it sustains for a few timeless moments.

Hard Water might not exactly constitute “a new sound,” but it is an intriguing and deeply moving amalgam of some old and fresh ones. Perhaps more importantly, it beckons the arrival on the Canadian music scene of an inventive and dynamic band, while leaving plenty of room for them to stretch out in future efforts.