Awoo

Good CD. The flavor of the Hidden Cameras music is undeniably palatable. The tunes are just fun (despite lyrics that might be considered to be "at the far end of some spectrum or another"). If you'd like a couple more melodies to carry around in your head whether you like it or not...you'll have to have to add this CD to your Hidden Cameras' collection. I couldn't give it 5-stars 'cause I liked their last CD just a little more (I suspect their fist CD is quite "catchy" as well). There are songs on this disc that I wouldn't have wanted to miss, though. It's good summertime music and also good music to keep your mood "up" in the more dreary months of the year (try not to get hung up on the words and meaning that accompanies the music).

I bought this CD after hearing the song, "She's Gone" (which is not a cover of the Hall & Oates song,"She's Gone") on CBC radio a couple of times. It is very good pop. The rest of the recording is rather repetitive and unimaginative. I would suggest at least trying out samples of the mp3s before buying, and even just downloading that song.

I heard a track from this album while riding in my sisters car. I went home and immediately bought it! I'ts great, upbeat and weird just the way I like it!

I absolutely loved this CD. The music mixes so many great sounds and vibes. The lyrics are sometimes sexy, sometimes silly, but always match the tone of the music perfectly. Fee Fie is my favorite on this CD.

Are you ready to bounce your head up and down and sway side to side and jump up and down and all around in your bedroom when you are all alone and the new Hidden Cameras is blasting from your stereo. Cause that's what we've been doing pretty much nonstop since Awoo has come out. The third full length from the glorious pop band from Toronto does not disappoint one bit. With an impeccable ability to write hooks that will stay in your head for days and weeks and months to come. This is pop music at its smartest and most delightful level of catchy bliss. While some recent reviews of this record have harped over the fact that the lyrics aren't as dirty or sexual as past releases we think those minds are missing the point. This was never a novelty band about a simple joke or dirty one-liner. Their queer politics are for sure still strong in their heart and more then almost anyone else they have an amazing ability to sing songs that both talk to the body and the heart. Taking some of the best parts of R.E.M and Belle & Sebastian, Hidden Cameras have carved a spot for themselves as one of the pop bands who most definitely matter!

after a several years, & two albums of jubilant; funny, fantastic, campy, explicitly gay, and occasionally touching music from the hidden cameras, i began to feel i was waiting for them to do something more thoughtful, and bit more mentally hefty. this album for me, is a breakthrough. err, hopefully for them too. the lyrics are now complex, maybe puzzling. i think all the songs may still be sexual, in some way, but FAR more oblique & creative than the overt and campy lyrics of their previous two albums. these writings are beautiful, & still funny in a new allusive way, & the music just as joyous as 'the smell of our own', 'and mississauga goddam', but also far more eclectic, and varied. a few times it's somber & often more subtle, while always tightly produced & performed, & i notice joel gibb sounds much more comfortable with his voice, having fun with inflections & accents and his entire performance. Awoo is beautifuly written, accompanied by violin, viola, cello, piano, some glockenspiel, banjo, & creatively-random percusion. at the heart are joel's electric lyrics & guitar, eclectic, thoughtful, charming singing & songwriting. this one has far more varied sounds than their past albums, while still being familiar if you're a fan. track 8, "heji" might be my favorite; their first instrumental piece, and most atypical. it's a bit intense even, and somewhat more dark compared to the rest of the album's tracks. a song titled "she's gone" would normaly make me tepid, but the lovely, almost middle-eastern sweeping strings, beautiful melodies, and joyous guitar strumming and popping won me over, as quick as the similarly 'pop'-entitled, "lollipop" or "for fun" & happily-trodding around my head, the eclectic and memorable 'the waning moon' i first listened to "Awoo" over and over on my headphones while i did some lengthy organizing, (the music is very conducive to chores!) then after a break, certain songs stuck in my head. so i sat down to read the lyrics, and to hear those songs once more, and then the tracks after those, and so on. the more i hear, the more i listen, love, & am moved. one of my favorite's, certainly one of the best of '06, or even this past decade, and a great sign for the future of joel's music and 'the hidden cameras'! huzzah.

I'm going through my occasional dry spell in music so I dug this out of my collection and put it in, it's fun and hearty, a bit of uppity tunes for a hot day when you're thinking of going swimming but not sure, so you crack open a beer and chill with this. It's really nice for that, sorry to be so specific but that's how I enjoy this. There's a bit of a Magnetic Fields folky Beach Boys thing going on. And it seems very well realized and defined to have a kooky fun kinda sound, I didnt' give it 5 stars only because I feel like it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea. I enjoy it though. I'm curious to hear their other stuff.