Album Review: Jason Collett - Reckon

From the Great White North, please welcome Jason Collett to your speakers. A born and bred Canadian, Collett delivers Reckon, a beautiful album that celebrates, among other things, his own country. In the way Paul Kelly has immortalised Australian locales and images in his songs, so Collett does on this, his eighth studio album.

Through his solo work and as a prominent member of Broken Social Scene, Collett has been a part of the Canadian musical landscape for 20 years. The record's opening lines “I left Toronto in the rain/Landed in Vancouver in the rain” (Pacific Blue) is enough to bring tears to any Canuck's eyes, and the emotion dredged up through lines like “She takes off her dress/In a Fort McMurray motel bed/When the boys cash their checks/In the fields of black gold” is brutally honest when paired with the soft acoustic guitar of Miss Canada (Fort McMurray is the Canadian equivalent of Kalgoorlie or any other big mining town, FYI)

There are moments on Reckon that evoke another famous Canadian, Neil Young, in its traditional folk ethos (“A two-pack habit pushing a baby stroller/My daddy was a rock'n'roller” – My Daddy Was A Rocknroller) and anti-establishment mentality (“It's hard to make a living/When its easy making a killing” – When The War Came Home). But so often these (mildly) aggressive moments are balanced by wonderfully-arranged, emotional songs like Song Of The Silver-Haired Hippie and Where Things Go Wrong.

If you're planning a trip to Canada, put down the Lonely Planet. The only item you'll need guiding you is Reckon, a couple of hockey tickets (that's ice hockey to you, rookie), and some Timbits (look that one up). You'll fit right in, eh.