AGE

Editors’ Notes Chamber pop provocateur Joel Gibb leads The Hidden Cameras onto the dancefloor with ‘80s-inspired techno flourishes on the band’s sixth album, AGE. The Canadian collective’s loyal following will find The Hidden Cameras' yeasty mix of erotic imagery and sweeping melody as stimulating as ever. What’s new is a greater emphasis on programmed grooves, added with a judiciousness that enhances rather than undercuts the orchestral elements. Lyrically, AGE dissects human identity and desire in both decadent and life-affirming ways. As before, a love for liturgical sounds gives Gibb’s songs a solemnity that deepens their carnal bite. Tracks like the darkly sensuous “Skin & Leather” and the insistently catchy “Doom” fuse nonstop beats with monastic vocal tones to arresting effect. “Carpe Jugular” (a percolating invocation of vintage Depeche Mode and Erasure) and “Afterparty” (a slinky, dub-drenched number) veer deeply into electronica. Pianist Chilly Gonzales and singer Mary Margaret O’Hara (lending her uncanny tones to the string-draped “Gay Goth Scene”) make crucial contributions.