Key Principles

Album review

Both country and C&W are genres that blossomed around the problems of ordinary people, with their emotive thematic situations invariably writ larger than life. Nathan's heart is close to this tradition, but their heads are far more nuanced, and consequently the Canadian group's subjects and lyrics bear little resemblance to their Southern counterparts. No achy-breaky hearts, cheatin' beatin' husbands or runaway wives are to be found on Key Principles, instead Nathan's world is populated by less dramatic souls with far less well-defined complaints. An amorphous restlessness pools around "Trans Am," an unspoken yearning is whipped up by "The Wind," nostalgia swirls around "John Paul's Deliveries," and existential angst defines an "Ordinary Day." All of Key Principles' characters long for a bit of happiness in their drab, disconnected lives. Each one is deliberately understated, their actions seemingly reduced in size, with even murder made minuscule, as if they're constantly aware their world is dwarfed by the universe itself.
In that respect, Key Principles is a continuation of the stories told on their previous two sets, but this time the quartet expand their sound, adding a flash of cabaret here, a touch of Stax brass there, a bit of Tex-Mex elsewhere, all beautifully pulled together by Howard Redekopp's excellent production. A transcendental set, and Nathan's best record to date.

© Jo-Ann Greene /TiVo