I fully expected this review to be a takedown of Canada’s finest band. Or at least that’s what all my Canadian friends tell me; "the Tragically Hip are Canada’s finest band". Ten years I’ve been hearing that from fanatical supporters, and for ten years I’ve resisisted. I’ve never really gotten the Tragically Hip.

It’s not that I have a problem with Canadian bands. No-ne-no-no-no. It’s just that most of Canada’s finest exports sound so very Canadian*. With all due respect to my neighbors in the Great White North Where Money Is Funny Colors And $15 Will Buy You A Small Coke, bands like Moxy Fruvous, Barenaked Ladies, and Great Big Sea sound exactly like what they are: groups who learned early in their career what it takes to bring down houses from Toronto to Yellowknife. The joke songs, sing-alongs and sea chanteys certainly suggest hard lessons learned in a hundred surly gigs in Manitoba, and the premium on literate rhymes and hipster references suggest another hundred playing college bars in Ontario.

None of this is bad; lots of bands sound like where they’re from. But ultimately this can constrain a band and limit their appeal, and it's been proven that Canada can offer much more. Neil Young and Bruce Cockburn come to mind as artists who have transcended “Canadianness,” and Rush have become a genre all to themselves. Dozens of Canadian comedians have succeeded wildly without sacrificing the genial looniness that is their hallmark. But transcending Canada is hard, and few can do it. For years, I’ve watched as the Tragically Hip have struggled at the precipice, one leg on solid ground and the other in the void, frantically scrabbling at International Rock Legitimacy.

I think they’ve finally got it. The Hip’s new album, In Between Evolution is more downcast and serious than I’ve heard them be before, and although I think their future lies in happyland, misery becomes them for now. Their signature brittle guitar sound and Gordon Downie’s barely on-key singing are lent to a baker’s dozen of tautly written songs that range from vaguely REM-ish solipsism to pointed takedowns of American hubris. In Between Evolution smartly balances driving arena rock, indie sensibility, and tasteful writing, and feels like a more mature, embittered follow-up to the only other thing from them I’ve actually liked, parts of 1993’s crossover album Fully Completely. (Full disclosure-- My Hip credibility is not great, as most of what I've heard I've really not liked at all. Your mileage may vary.)