JG

I love Our Lady Peace. This review will be biased. I have all of their albums (6) and have seen them in concert 3 times (last week at the 9:30 club in DC was #3).

You have probably heard at least one of their songs and didn't realize who they are. They are a Canadian band and have been around for a long time (mid 90's). One of their biggest U.S. hits was 1997's 'Superman is Dead' off the album Clumsy. Three years ago their song 'Somewhere Out There', off their album Gravity, probably sold the most singles in the U.S.

Their new album, Healthy in Paranoid Times, took a long time to make. 1165 days to be exact. This is their most political album to date, although not preachy. It has some definite 'wave your hands' anthem tunes (I waved my hands at the show last week to these new songs: 'Where Are You', 'Wipe That Smile Off Your Face' and 'Angels/Losing/Sleep').

Of course there always has to be the sentimental lullaby type song. On Healthy in Paranoid Times it would be 'Al Genina (Leave the Light On)'. This song was written by Raine Maida (lead singer) after a trip to a few third world nations.

My favorite song on the album is 'Picture' (although this changes daily- last week it was 'Boy'). It's a sweeping, beautiful and very personal song- ”Don’t take my picture down/Don’t erase everything that we had …".

The concert was awesome. It was sold out and actually seemed to be full of all OLP die hards. Everyone was singing every song. During the encore, the audience sang most of an entire song while Raine stood holding the microphone out to us. Typical concert moment, but, well, I sang my heart out :)

It's a good rock/alternative album. I definitely recommend it. Although if you never heard OLP, I would probably have you buy their last album 'Gravity' too!

Check out my music downloads for some of my favorite OLP tunes...