Following the heady excitement of the announcement of 2011′s Mercury Music Prize winner, some amongst our musical brethren may now find themselves feeling a little lost. “What am I going to do now?”, “what will I place bets on at the bookies?”, “what will I have to argue about with my friends in the pub?” are the kind of questions on the lips of many a music fan throughout the UK. But friends, don’t worry. Our buddies in Canada are here to save the day, by occupying our melody seeking minds with their very own version of the accolade, the Polaris Music Prize. Now into its sixth year, the Polaris Music Prize has established itself as a pretty important event in the world’s musical calender, celebrating the best of recorded music being produced in Canada. Past winners have included the likes of Caribou, Fucked Up and Patrick Watson, and their 10 album shortlist for 2011 is pretty good looking too.

Here at The Line of Best Fit, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to present to you the ten albums up for the Polaris Music Prize this year. Our esteemed writers will try to win hearts and support with their statements of adoration, as we look at the nominees, and the work of this diverse range of acts and artists.

Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

After the big themed albums addressing death (Funeral) and religion (Neon Bible), at first glance The Suburbs threatened to be a bit of a comedown for Win and Regine’s third outing. However, the more that it was played, the more the overlapping themes of this nuanced, complex, thoughtful and involving album emerged.

Rich with a sense of youthful impatience, an urge to escape those suburban childhood days, the sense of frustration is palpable, convincing and authentic. “Grab your mother’s keys, we’re leaving”, they say; talking of urges to “jump the fence and leave it behind”, along with the “kids on buses longing to be free”. At the same time, though, something still draws them back to these streets, these scenes from their earlier days. Perhaps with one eye to their own future as parents (“I want a daughter while I’m still young”, Win tells us), the pull of the suburbs is obviously still strong.

That all this – the teenage disenchantment, the grown up impulse to settle down and more – comes served with a huge dose of Regine’s flighty, and frankly joyous disco euphoria only makes it exponentially more brilliant. Channelling Abba (‘Empty Room’) as much as their standard touchstone Bruce Springsteen (whose presence is still, nevertheless, felt on tracks like ‘Month of May’), the utter delight of the frothy, synth-led ‘Sprawl II (Mountains Be…)’ sees the band break out into a playfulness that is wonderful to behold.

Smart and considered, but with heart as well as brains, Arcade Fire are looking more and more like one of the 21st century’s defining and essential bands. In The Suburbs, then, they appear to have have once again pulled it off, producing a resonant work that nourishes both the mind and the musical soul.

By Jude Clarke

Ron Sexsmith – Long Player, Late Bloomer

Before making Long Player, Late Bloomer, Ron Sexsmith knew something had to change. He’d been the subject of fervent adoration for years – but from a distinctly limited amount of people. Granted, among those people were critics and professional musicians (Elvis Costello compared Sexsmith’s sense for melody to that of Paul McCartney and Feist recorded his “Brandy Alexander” for her album The Reminder), but despite their combined efforts, sales figures for his first eleven albums (!) failed to reflect the quality of his deeply soulful, touching, and incredibly melodic songs.

So, with crunch time approaching and his 50th birthday only a few years away, the Canadian songwriter brought in the big guns – or, more specifically, a single, one-shot cannon in the form of veteran producer Bob Rock. That’s right, the guy who produced Bon Jovi and played bass on Metallica’s Some Kind of Monster.

Rock turned out to be just the guy to help polish Sexsmith’s gorgeous songwriter pop – just listen to the slide guitars and harmonics in ‘Heavenly’, the almost-but-not-quite cheesy handclaps and the vocal harmonies in ‘Middle of Love’. The tone Sexsmith strikes on Long Player… is often wry (“And as for heaven, well/If seeing is believing/I’ll believe it when I see it with my own two eyes”), sometimes melancholic (“In every Nowhere Town/There are somewhere dreams”), but always heartfelt. The title track deals explicitly with the fact that he has been working below the radar of 95% of music fans for years, but that he is giving it his best shot now: “I’ve heard the penny drop/I’m a small player with a tall order/To come out on top”, he sings, and sounds both confident and self-deprecating at the same time. It would be heartbreaking (and daylight robbery) if he didn’t win the Polaris prize – but we can take comfort in the thought that he’d probably turn the experience into another beautiful album.

By Matthias Scherer

Galaxie – Tigre et Diesel

If the star that burns brightest, burns fastest then Montreal’s Galaxie will vanish in a flash. Ten tracks in 30 minutes and it’s gone, but not before exploding with energy and distortion. Galaxie’s third album, Tigre et Diesel, is effectively the jazz choice in the sense that it’s the only Francophone album on the shortlist, and as such avoids any hipster name dropping, but look back at the Polaris and it’s the French speakers who always surprise – check out Montreal’s Malajube.

Tigre et Diesel is a dance floor swagger. Daft Punk riding Primal Scream. It’s equally at home in a neon super club as a sticky floored indie disco. It opens with ‘Piste 1’ a fuzz-box, 70s glam stomp of Slade battling Alec Empire, complete with prog-rock synths tuned in to Jodrell Bank. ‘Clamoufour’ likewise is laden in distortion with a thunderous throbbing riff straight from ‘Jailbird’ era Scream.

Pounding electronica permeates Tigre et Diesel. ‘Diesel 2’ is reverberating nu-trance, with rolling snares and a growling vocal breakdown between frantic, discordant, hard-house beats. ‘Encore’ even repeatedly proclaims “Encore une fois”, an unmasked homage to Ibizan euphoria with a catchy-as-hell, funky house bass line beside a heavily distorted guitar solo. The dance element shouldn’t be over sold, this is still essentially a rock record – ‘Jusqu‘a la Fin’ is even a mellow acoustic ditty.

Galaxie’s success with Tigre et Diesel is its fearlessness to skip between genres, mainly because it knows language will be a turn off to many, and it doesn’t care. Yes, it mainly relies on glam rock stomps, electronica and layers of distortion, but it transposes these through rave into hillbilly-country. It packs more into half an hour than many do in a career. And what’s more, it’s a fun, energising record worthy of the all of the acclaim that it receives.

By David Newbury

http://soundcloud.com/tlobf/galaxie-piste-1

Check back throughout the upcoming week for exclusive interviews and reviews of the Polaris Music Prize.